The Monist

THE MONIST

A QUARTERLY MAGAZINE

DEVOTED TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

VOLUME XV.

CHICAGO
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY

LONDON AGENTS:

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & Co., LTD.
1905

COPYRIGHT BY

THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING Co
1905-

CONTENTS OF VOLUME XV.

ARTICLES AND AUTHORS.

PAGE

Andrews, W. S. Magic Squares 429, 555

Arreat, Lucien. Literary Correspondence, 130; On the Notion of Order
in the Universe, 262.

Baker, Arthur Latham. A Circular Polygon 462

Birney, William. Did the Monks Preserve the Latin Classics ? 87

Carus, Paul. Chinese Script and Thought (Illustrated), 271; Chinese
Occultism (Illustrated), 500; The Christian Doctrine of Resurrection,
115; Conception of the Soul and the Belief in Resurrection Among
the Egyptians (Illustrated), 409; Difficulties in Philosophical Nomen-
clature, 633 ; The Place of Mathematics in Education, 295 ; The Sig-
nificance of Quality, 375.

Ceptacle Hypothesis, The. By O. B. Taft 182

Chinese Occultism. By Paul Carus 500

Chinese Script and Thought. By Paul Carus 271

Christian Sects in Syria, Moslem Account as to the Origin of. By H.

Wernekke 466

Christianity, An Ancient Moslem Account of. By A. J. Edmunds 120

Circular Polygon. By A. L. Baker 462

Cockerill, Robert C. Definition of God 637

Code of Hammurabi, Place of. By A. H. Godbey 199

Conception of the Soul and the Belief in Resurrection Among the Egyp-
tians. By Paul Carus 409

Consciousness, A Scientific View of. By G. Gore 409

Couturat, Louis. An International Auxiliary Language. (With Editorial

Reply) ' 143

Day, Rev. Edward. The Search for the Prophets 386

Definition of God. By R. C. Cockerill 637

Did the Monks Preserve the Latin Classics ? By W. Birney 87

Difficulties in Philosophical Nomenclature. By Paul Carus 633

Edmunds, Albert J. An Ancient Moslem Account of Christianity 120

God, Definition of. By R. C. Cockerill 637

Godbey, A. H. The Place of the Code of Hammurabi, 199; The Semitic
City of Refuge, 605 ; Shylock in the Old Testament, 353.

Gore, G. A Scientific View of Consciousness ., 227

Gros, Johannes. Quality and Quantity 361

IV THE MONIST.

PAGE

Gunlogsen, A. H. Icelandic Literature 109

Herrick, Clarence L., Obituary of ' *. 151

Herrick, Clarence L. The Passing of Scientific Materialism 46

Hilbert, D. On the Foundations of Logic and Arithmetic 338

Icelandic Literature. By A. H. Gunlogsen 109

Infinitude as a Philosophical Problem (With Editorial Comment). By

C. J. Keyset 124

International Auxiliary Language (With Editorial Reply). By L. Cou-

turat 143

Issues of Pragmaticism. By C. S. Peirce 481

Keyser, Cassius J. Infinitude as a Philosophical Problem (With Editorial

Comments) 124

King, Irving. The Pragmatic Interpretation of the Christian Dogma 248

Literary Correspondence (France). By Lucien Arreat 130

Logic and Arithmetic, On the Foundations of. By D. Hilbert 338

McFarland, R. W. A Mathematical Analogy in Theological Reasoning.. . 626

Magic Squares. By W. S. Andrews 429, 555

Mathematical Analogy in Theological Reasoning. By R. W. McFarland.. 626

Mathematical Physics, Principles of. By H. Poincare i

Mathematics in Education, The Place of. By Paul Carus 295

Mitchell, Henry Bedinger. The Problem of Unity and the Noetic Power

of the Heart 587

Motora, Yujiro. Conflict of Religion and Science 398

Nazorean, Meaning of the Epithet.- By W. B. Smith 25

Noble, Edmund. The Relational Element in Monism 321

Noetic Power of the Heart. By H. B. Mitchell 587

Order in the Universe, On the Notion of. By L. Arreat 262

Pasigraphy, Suggestions Concerning. By W. T. Swingle 148

Peirce, Charles S. The Issues of Pragmaticism, 481 ; What Pragmatism
is, 161.

Peterson, James B. Some Philosophical Terms 629

Philosophical Nomenclature, Difficulties in. By Paul Carus 633

Philosophical Terms, Some. By J. B. Peterson 629

Poincare, Henri. The Principles of Mathematical Physics. . . » i

Political Institutions a Factor in the Determination of the World Lan-
guage. By C. W. Super 150

Pragmatic Interpretation of the Christian Dogma. By I. King 248

Pragmaticism, The Issues of. By C. S. Peirce 481

Pragmatism, What it is. By C. S. Peirce 161

Quality and Quantity. By J. Gros 361

Quality, The Significance of. By Paul Carus 375

Relational Element in Monism. By E. Noble 321

Religion and Science, Conflict of. By Y. Motora 398

Resurrection, The Christian Doctrine of. By Paul Carus 115

Russell, Francis C. Substitution in Logic : 294

Scientific Materialism, The Passing of. By C. L. Herrick 46

Search for the Prophets, The. By Rev. E. Day 386

Semitic City of Refuge. By A. H. Godbey 605

Shylock in the Old Testament. By A. H. Godbey 353

CONTENTS OF VOLUME XV. V

PAGE
Smith, William Benjamin. Meaning of the Epithet Nazorean (Nazarene) 25

Some Philosophical Terms. By J. B. Peterson 629

Substitution in Logic. By F. R. Russell 294

Super, Charles W. Power of Political Institutions as a Factor in the De-
termination of the World Language 150

Swingle, Walter T. Suggestions Concerning Pasigraphy 148

Taft, Oren B. The Ceptacle Hypothesis. 182

Theological Reasoning, Mathematical Analogy in. By R. W. McFarland. 626
Unity, The Problem of, and the Noetic Power of the Heart. By H. B.

Mitchell. . . 587

Wernekke, H. Moslem Account as to the Origin of Christian Sects in
Syria 466

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES.

Annee biologique 479

Ardigo, Dr. Roberto. La Dottrina della Conoscenza nei Moderni Pre-

cursori di Kant 480

Burton, Ernest De Witt. Studies in the Gospel According to Mark 478

Empirical Essays 314

Favre, Louis. Notes sur 1'histoire generale des sciences 319

Franklin, C. K. Socialization of Humanity 307

Ghent, W. J. Mass and Class 639

Haeckel, Ernst. Die Lebenswunder ; The Wonders of Life 308

Hall, G. Stanley. Adolescence 303

Harper, William Rainey. Religion and the Higher Life, 154; Structure of

the Text of the Book of Hosea, 318.

Haupt, Paul. Kohelet oder Weltschmerz in der Bibel 158

Hensel, P. Hauptprobleme der Ethik 319

Hill, David Jayne. Contemporary Development of Diplomacy 473

Hinton, C. H. The Fourth Dimension 310

Hudson, William Henry. Introduction to the Philosophy of Herbert

Spencer 640

Hughes, C. H. Lectures on Neurology and Neuriatry, Psychology and

Psychiatry 313

Hyde, Wm. De Witt. From Epicurus to Christ 316

Leicht, Dr. Alfred. Lazarus, der Begrunder der Volkerpsychologie 159

Metcalf, Maynard M. Outline of the Theory of Evolution 640

Molee, Elias. Tutonish 311

Nichols, Herbert. A Treatise on Cosmology 157

Ossip-Lourie. La psychologic des romanciers russes du XIXe siecle 475

Owen, E. T. Interrogative Thought 320

Picavet, Francois. Histoire generale et comparee des philosophies medie-

valles 476

Riehl, Alois. Zur Einfiihrung in die Philosophic der Gegenwart 477

Salvadori, Dr. Guglielmo. Saggio di uno Studio sui Sentimenti Morali. . 480
Silberstein, Dr. A. Leibnizens Apriorismus im Verhaltniss zu seiner

Metaphysik 160

VI THE MONIST.

PAGE

Smith, William Benjamin. The Color Line 469

Swarte, Victor de. Descartes, directeur spirituel , 318

Troilo, Dr. Erminio. La Dottrina della Conoscenza pi Herbert Spencer.. 480

Warne, Frank Julian. The Slav Invasion 297

Weismann, August. Vortrage iiber die Deszendenztheorie 301

Windelband, Wilhelm. Immanuel Kant und seine Weltanschauung 480

Withers, J. W. Euclid's Parallel Postulate 309

Woodbridge, F. J. S. The Philosophy of Hobbes 3*5

Wundt, Wilhelm. Volkerpsychologie 160

VOL. XV. JANUARY, 1905. No. 1.

THE MONIST

THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICAL
PHYSICS.1

WHAT is the actual state of mathematical physics? What are
the problems it is led to set itself? What is its future?
Is its orientation on the point of modifying itself?

Will the aim and the methods of this science appear in ten
years to our immediate successors in the same light as to ourselves ;
or, on the contrary, are we about to witness a profound transforma-
tion ? Such are the questions we are forced to raise in entering to-
day upon our investigation.

If it is easy to propound them, to answer is dfficult.

If we feel ourselves tempted to risk a prognostication, we have,
to resist this temptation, only to think of all the stupidities the most
eminent savants of a hundred years ago would have uttered, if one
had asked them what the science of the nineteenth century would
be. They would have believed themselves bold in their predictions,
and after the event, how very timid we should have found them.

Do not, therefore, expect of me any prophecy ; if I had known
what one will discover to-morrow, I would long ago have published
it to secure me the priority.

But if, like all prudent physicians, I shun giving a prognosis,
nevertheless I cannot dispense with a little diagnostic; well, yes,
there are indications of a serious crisis, as if we should expect an
approaching transformation.

*An address delivered before the International Congress or Arts and
Science, St. Louis, September, 1904. Translated by George Bruce Halsted.

2 THE MONIST.

We are assured that the patient will not die of it, and even we
can hope that this crisis will be salutary, that it was even necessary
for his development. This the history of the past seems to guar-
antee us.

This crisis in fact is not the first, and for its comprehension it
is important to recall those which have preceded it.

Mathematical physics, we know, was born of celestial mechan-
ics, which engendered it at the end of the eighteenth century, at
the moment when it itself attained its complete development. Dur-
ing its first years especially, the infant resembled in a striking way
its mother.

The astronomic universe is formed of masses, very great with-
out doubt, but separated by intervals so immense, that they appear
to us only as material points. These points attract each other in
the inverse ratio of the square of the distances, and this attraction
is the sole force which influences their movements. But if our
senses were sufficiently subtle to show us all the details of the
bodies which the physicist studies, the spectacle we should there
discover would scarcely differ from what the astronomer contem-
plates. There also we should see material points, separated one
from another by intervals, enormous in relation to their dimensions,
and describing orbits following regular laws.

These infinitesimal stars are the atoms. Like the stars prop-
erly so called, they attract or repel each other, and this attraction or
this repulsion directed following the straight line which joins them,
depends only on the distance. The law according to which this
force varies as function of the distance is perhaps not the law of
Newton, but it is an analogous law ; in place of the exponent — 2,
we have probably a different exponent, and it is from this change
of exponent that springs all the diversity of physical phenomena, the
variety of qualities and of sensations, all the world colored and
sonorous which surrounds us, in a word, all nature.

Such is the primitive conception in all its purity. It only re-
mains to seek in the different cases what value should be given to
this exponent in order to explain all the facts. It is on this model
that Laplace, for example, constructed his beautiful theory of capil-

THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS. 3

larity : he regards it only as a particular case of attraction, or as
he says of universal gravitation, and no one is astonished to find
it in the middle of one of the five volumes of the Mecanique celeste.

More recently Briot believed he had penetrated the final secret
of optics in demonstrating that the atoms of ether attract each other
in the inverse ratio of the sixth power of the distance; and Max-
well, Maxwell himself, does he not say somewhere that the atoms
of ga'ses repel each other in the inverse ratio of the fifth power of
the distance ? We have the exponent — 6, or — 5 in place of the
exponent — 2, but it is always an exponent.

Among the theories of this epoch, one alone is an exception,
that of Fourier; in it are indeed atoms, acting at a distance one upon
the other ; they mutually transmit heat, but they do not attract, they
never budge. From this point of view, the theory of Fourier must
have appeared to the eyes of his contemporaries, to those of Fourier
himself, as imperfect and provisional.

This conception was not without grandeur ; it was seductive,
and many among us have not finally renounced it; they know that
one will attain the ultimate elements of things only by patiently dis-
entangling the complicated skein that our senses give us ; that it
is necessary to advance step by step, neglecting no intermediary ;
that our fathers were wrong in wishing to skip stations; but they
believe that when one shall have arrived at these ultimate elements,
there again will be found the majestic simplicity of celestial me-
chanics.

Neither has this conception been useless ; it has rendered us
an inestimable service, since it has contributed to make precise in
us the fundamental notion of the physical law.

I will explain myself ; how did the ancients understand law ? It
was for them an internal harmony, static, so to say, and immutable ;
or it was like a model that nature constrained herself to imitate. A
law for us is no more that at all; it is a constant relation between
the phenomenon of to-day and that of to-morrow ; in a word, it is
a differential equation.

Behold the ideal form of physical law; well, it is the law of
Newton which first covered it; and then how has one acclimated

4 THE MONIST.

this form in physics; precisely in copying as much as possible this
law of Newton, that is in imitating celestial mechanics.

Nevertheless, a day arrived when the conception of central
forces no longer appeared sufficient, and this is the first of those
crises of which I just now spoke.

What did one do then? One gave up trying to penetrate into
the detail of the structure of the universe, to isolate the pieces of
this vast mechanism, to analyse one by one the forces which put
them in motion, and was content to take as guides certain general
principles which have precisely for object to spare us this minute
study.

How so? Suppose that we have before us any machine; the
initial wheel work and the final wheel work alone are visible, but
the transmission, the intermediary wheels by which the movement
is communicated from one to the other are hidden in the interior
and escape our view ; we do not know whether the communication
is made by gearing or by belts, by connecting-rods or by other dis-
positives.

Do we say that it is impossible for us to understand anything
about this machine so long as we are not permitted to take it to
pieces? You know well we do not, and that the principle of the
conservation of energy suffices to determine for us the most inter-
esting point. We easily ascertain that the final wheel turns ten
times less quickly than the initial wheel, since these two wheels are
visible; we are able thence to conclude that a couple applied to the
one will be balanced by a couple ten times greater applied to the
other. For that there is no need to penetrate the mechanism of
this equilibrium and to know how the forces compensate each
other in the interior of the machine; it suffices to be assured that
this compensation cannot fail to occur.

Well, in regard to the universe, the principle of the conserva-
tion of energy is able to render us the same service. This is also a
machine, much more complicated than all those of industry, and of
which almost all the parts are profoundly hidden from us; but in
observing the movement of those that we can see, we are able,
aiding ourselves by this principle, to draw conclusions which remain

THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS. 5

true whatever may be the details of the invisible mechanism which
animates them.

The principle of the conservation of energy, or the principle
of Mayer, is certainly the most important, but it is not the only one ;
there are others from which we are able to draw the same advantage.
These are :

The principle of Carnot, or the principle of the degrada-
tion of energy.

The principle of Newton, or the principle of the equality
of action and reaction.

The principle of relativity, according to which the laws
of physical phenomena should be the same, whether for an
observer fixed, or for an observer carried along in a uniform
movement of translation ; so that we have not and could not
have any means of discerning whether or not we are carried
along in such a motion.

The principle of the conservation of mass, or principle of
Lavoisier.

I would add the principle of least action.

The application of 'these five or six general principles to the
different physical phenomena is sufficient for our learning of them
what we could reasonably hope to .know of them.

The most remarkable example of this new mathematical phys-
ics is, beyond contradiction. Maxwell's electro-magnetic theory of
light.

We know nothing as to what is the ether, how its molecules
are disposed, whether they attract or repel each other ; but we know
that this medium transmits at the same time the optical perturbations
and the electrical perturbations; we know that this transmission
should be made conformably to the general principles of mechanics
and that suffices us for the establishment of the equations of the
electro-magnetic field.

These principles are results of experiments boldly generalised ;
but they seem to derive from their generality itself an eminent de-
gree of certitude.

In fact the more general they are, the more frequently one has

6 THE MON1ST.

the occasion to check them, and the verifications, in multiplying
themselves, in taking forms the most varied and the most unex-
pected, finish by leaving no longer place for doubt.

Such is the second phase of the history of mathematical phys-
ics and we have not yet emerged from it.

Do we say that the first has been useless? that during fifty
years science went the wrong way, and that there is nothing left
but to forget so many accumulated efforts that a vicious conception
condemned in advance to non-success?

Not the least in the world.

Do you believe that the second phase could have come into
existence without the first?

The hypothesis of central forces contained all the principles ;
it involved them as necessary consequences; it involved both the
conservation of energy and that of masses, and the equality of
action and reaction ; and the law of least action, which would appear,
it is true, not as experimental verities, but as theorems and of which
the enunciation would have at the same time a something more pre-
cise and less general than ander their actual form.

It is the mathematical physics of our fathers which has fami-
liarised us little by little with these divers principles; which has
habituated us to recognise them under the different vestments in
which they disguise themselves. One has compared them to the
data of experience, or has seen how it was necessary to modify
their enunciation to adapt them to these data; thereby they have
been enlarged and consolidated.

So one has been led to regard them as experimental verities;
the conception of central forces became then a useless support, or
rather an embarrassment, since it made the principles partake of its
hypothetical character.

The frames have not therefore broken, because they were elas-
tic ; but they have enlarged ; our fathers, who established them, did
not work in vain, and we recognise in the science of to-day the
general traits of the sketch which they traced.

Are we about to enter now upon the eve of a second crisis?
These principles on which we have built all are they about to

THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS. 7

crumble away in their turn? Since some time, this may well be
asked.

In hearing me speak thus, you think without doubt of radium,
that grand revolutionist of the present time, and in fact I will come
back to it presently ; but there is something else.

It is not alone the conservation of energy which is in question ;
all the other principles are equally in danger, as we shall see in pass-
ing them successively in review.

Let us commence with the principle of Carnot. This is the
only one which does not present itself as an immediate consequence
of the hypothesis of central forces ; more than that, it seems if not
to directly contradict that hypothesis, at least not to be reconciled
with it without a certain effort.

If physical phenomena were due exclusively to the movements
of atoms whose mutual attraction depended only on the distance,
it seems that all these phenomena should be reversible ; if all the
initial velocities were reversed, these atoms, always subjected to
the same forces, ought to go over their trajectories in the contrary
sense, just as the earth wonld describe in the retrograde sense this
same elliptic orbit which it describes in the direct sense, if the
initial conditions of its movement had been reversed. On this ac-
count, if a physical phenomenon is possible, the inverse phenomenon
should be equally so, and one should be able to reascend the course
of time.

But it is not so in nature, and this is precisely what the prin-
ciple of Carnot teaches us ; heat can pass from the warm body to the
cold body; it is impossible afterwards to make it reascend the in-
verse way and re-establish differences of temperature which have
been effaced.

Motion can be wholly dissipated and transformed into heat by
friction; the contrary transformation can never be made except in
a partial manner.

We have striven to reconcile this apparent contradiction. If
the world tends toward uniformity, this is not because its ultimate
parts, at first unlike, tend to become less and less different, it is be-
cause, shifting at hazard, they end by blending. For an eye which

8 THE MONIST.

should distinguish all the elements, the* variety would remain always
as great, each grain of this dust preserves its originality and does
not model itself on its neighbors ; but as the blend becomes more and
more intimate, our gross senses perceive no more than the uniform-
ity. Behold why, for example, temperatures tend to a level, without
the possibility of turning backwards.

A drop of wine falls into a glass of water; whatever may be
the law of the internal movements of the liquid, we soon see it
colored of a uniform rosy tint and from this moment, one may well
shake the vase, the wine and the water do not seem able any more
to separate. See, thus, what would be the type of the reversible
physical phenomenon : to hide a grain of barley in a cup of wheat,
this is easy ; afterwards to find it again and get it out, this is practic-
ally impossible.

All this Maxwell and Boltzmann have explained ; the one who
has seen it most clearly, in a book too little read because it is a little
difficult to read, is Gibbs, in his Elemetary Principles of Statistical
Mechanics.

For those who take this point of view, the principle of Carnot
is only an imperfect principle, a sort of concession to the infirmity
of our senses; it is because our eyes are too gross that we do not
distinguish the elements of the blend ; it is because our hands are too
gross that we cannot force them to separate ; the imaginary demon
of Maxwell, who is able to sort the molecules one by one, could
well constrain the world to return backward. Can it return of it-
self ? That is not impossible ; that is only infinitely improbable.

The chances are that we should long await the concourse of
circumstances which would permit a retrogradation, but soon or
late, they would be realised, after years whose number it would
take millions of figures to write.

These reservations, however, all remained theoretic and were
not very disquieting, and the principle of Carnot retained all its
practical value.

But here the scene changes.

The biologist, armed with his microscope, long ago noticed in
his preparations disorderly movements of little particles in suspen-

THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS. 9

sion: this is the Brownian movement; he first thought this was a
vital phenomenon, but soon he saw that the inanimate bodies danced
with no less ardor than the others ; then he turned the matter over
to the physicists. Unhappily, the physicists remained long un-
interested in this question ; one .concentrates the light to illuminate
the microscopic preparation, thought they; with light goes heat;
thence inequalities of temperature and in the liquid interior currents
which produce the movements of which we speak.

M. Gouy had the idea to look more closely, and he saw or
thought he saw that this explanation is untenable, that the move-
ments become more brisk as the particles are smaller, but that they
are not influenced by the mode of illumination.

If then these movements never cease, or rather are reborn with-
out cease, without borrowing anything from an external source of
energy, what ought we to believe? To be sure, we should not re-
nounce our belief in the conservation of energy, but we see under
our eyes now motion transformed into heat by friction, now heat
changed inversely into motion, and that without loss since the move-
ment lasts forever. This is the contrary of the principle of Carnot.

If this be so, to see the world return backward, we no longer
have need of the infinitely subtle eye of Maxwell's demon ; our
microscope suffices us. Bodies too large, those, for example, which
are a tenth of a millimeter, are hit from all sides by moving atoms,
but they do not budge, because these shocks are very numerous and
the law of chance makes them compensate each other: but the
smaller particles receive too few shocks for this compensation to
take place with certainty and are incessantly knocked about. And
behold already one of our principles in peril.

We come to the principle of relativity : this not only is confirmed
by daily experience, not only is it a necessary consequence of the
hypothesis of central forces, but it is imposed in an irresistible way
upon our good sense, and yet it also is battered.

Consider two electrified bodies ; though they seem to us at rest,
they are both carried along by the motion of the earth; an electric
charge in motion, Rowland has taught us, is equivalent to a current ;
these two charged bodies are, therefore, equivalent to two parallel

IO THE MONIST.

currents of the same sense and these two currents should attract
each other. In measuring this attraction, we measure the velocity
of the earth ; not its velocity in relation to the sun or the fixed stars,
but its absolute velocity.

I well know what one will say, it is not its absolute velocity
that is measured, it is its velocity in relation to the ether. How un-
satisfactory that is! Is it not evident that from the principle so
understood we could no longer get anything? It could no longer
tell us anything just because it would no longer fear any contra-
diction.

If we succeed in measuring anything, we would always be free
to say that this is not the absolute velocity in relation to the ether,
it might always be the velocity in relation to some new unknown
fluid with which we might fill space.

Indeed, experience has taken on itself to ruin this interpretation
of the principle of relativity ; all attempts to measure the velocity
of the earth in relation to the ether have led to negative results.
This time experimental physics has been more faithful to the prin-
ciple than mathematical physics; the theorists, to put in accord
their other general views, would not have spared it ; but experiment
has been stubborn in confirming it.

The means have been varied in a thousand ways and finally
Michelson has pushed precision to its last limits ; nothing has come
of it. It is precisely to explain this obstinacy that the mathema-
ticians are forced to-day to employ all their ingenuity.

Their task was not easy, and if Lorentz has gotten through it,
it is only by accumulating hypotheses. The most ingenious idea
has been that of local time.

Imagine two observers who wish to adjust their watches by
optical signals: they exchange signals, but as they know that the
transmission of light is not instantaneous, they take care to cross
them.

When the station B perceives the signal from the station A, its
clock should not mark the same hour as that of the station A at the
moment of sending the signal, but this hour augmented by a con-
stant representing the duration of the transmission. Suppose, for

THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS. II

example, that the station A sends its signal when its clock marks
the hour o, and that the station B perceives it when its clock marks
the hour t. The clocks are adjusted if the slowness equal to t repre-
sents the duration of the transmission, and to verify it, the station B
sends in its turn a signal when its clock marks o ; then the station A
should perceive it when its clock marks t. The time-pieces are then
adjusted. And in fact, they mark the same hour at the same phys-
ical instant, but on one condition, which is that the two stations are
fixed. In the contrary case the duration of the transmission will not
be the same in the two senses, since the station A, for example,
moves forward to meet the optical perturbation emanating from B,
while the station B flies away before the perturbation emanating
from A. The watches adjusted in that manner do not mark, there-
fore, the true time, they mark what one may call the local time, so
that one of them goes slow on the other. It matters little since we
have no means of perceiving it. All the phenomena which happen
at A, for example, will be late, but all will be equally so, and the
observer who ascertains them will not perceive it since his watch is
slow ; so as the principle of relativity would have it, he will have no
means of knowing whether he is at rest or in absolute motion.

Unhappily, that does not suffice, and complemetary hypotheses
are necessary ; it is necessary to admit that bodies in motion undergo
a uniform contraction in the sense of the motion. One of the diam-
eters of the earth, for example, is shrunk by 200 0*0 000 in conse-
quence of the motion of our planet, while the other diameter retains
its normal length. Thus, the last little differences find themselves
compensated. And, then, there still is the hypothesis about forces.
Forces, whatever be their origin, gravity as well as elasticity, would
be reduced in a certain proportion in a world animated by a unform
translation ; or, rather, this would happen for the components per-
pendicular to the translation ; the components parallel would not
change.

Resume, then, our example of two electrified bodies; these
bodies repel each other, but at the same time if all is carried along
in a uniform translation, they are equivalent to two parallel currents
of the same sense which attract each other. This electro-dvnamic

12 THE MONIST.

attraction diminishes, therefore, the electro-static repulsion, and the
total repulsion is more feeble than if the two bodies were at rest.
But since to measure this repulsion we must balance it by another
force, and all these other forces are reduced in the same proportion,
we perceive nothing.

Thus, all is arranged, but are all the doubts dissipated ?

What would happen if one could communicate by non-luminous
signals whose velocity of propagation differed from that of light?
If, after having adjusted the watches by the optical procedure, one
wished to verify the adjustment by the aid of these new signals,
then would appear divergences which would render evident the com-
mon translation of the two stations. And are such signals incon-
ceivable, if we admit with Laplace that universal gravitation is
transmitted a million times more rapidly than light ?

Thus, the principle of relativity has been valiantly defended
in these latter times, but the very energy of the defence proves how
serious was the attack.

Let us speak now of the principle of Newton, on the equality
of action and reaction.

This is intimately bound up with the preceding, and it seems
indeed that the fall of the one would involve that of the other.
Thus we should not be astonished to find here the same difficulties.

Electrical phenomena, we think, are due to the displacements
of little charged particles, called electrons, immersed in the medium
that we call ether. The movements of these electrons produce per-
turbations in the neighboring ether; these perturbations propagate
themselves in every direction with the velocity of light, and in turn
other electrons, originally at rest, are made to vibrate when the
perturbation reaches the parts of the ether which touch them.

The electrons, therefore, act on one another, but this action is
not direct, it is accomplished through the ether as intermediary.

Under these conditions can there be compensation between ac-
tion and reaction, at least for an observer who should take account
only of the movements of matter, that is to say, of the electrons, and
who should be ignorant of those of the ether that he could not see?
Evidently not. Even if the compensation should be exact, it could

THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS. 13

not be simultaneous. The perturbation is propagated with a finite
velocity; it, therefore, reaches the second electron only when the
first has long ago entered upon its rest.

This second electron, therefore, will undergo, after a delay,
the action of the first, but certainly it will not react on this, since
around this first electron nothing any longer budges.

The analysis of the facts permits us to be still more precise.
Imagine, for example, a Hertzian generator, like those employed in
wireless telegraphy ; it sends out energy in every direction ; but we
can provide it with a parabolic mirror, as Hertz did with his smallest
generators, so as to send all the energy produced in a single direc-
tion.

What happens then according to the theory? It is that the
apparatus recoils as if it were a gun and as if the energy it has pro-
jected were a bullet; and that is contrary to the principle of New-
ton, since our projectile here has no mass, it is not matter, it is
energy.

It is still the same, moreover, with a beacon light provided with
a reflector, since light is nothing but a perturbation of the electro-
magnetic field. This beacon light should recoil as if the light it
sends out were a projectile. What is the force that this recoil should
produce ? It is what one has called the Maxwell-Bartholdi pressure.
It is very minute, and it has been difficult to put it into evidence
even with the most sensitive radiometers ; but it suffices that it
exists.

If all the energy issuing from our generator falls on a receiver,
this will act as if it had received a mechanical shock, which will
represent in a sense the compensation of the recoil of the generator ;
the reaction will be equal to the action, but it will not be simulta-
neous; the receiver will move on but not at the moment when the
generator recoils. If the energy propagates itself indefinitely with-
out encountering a receiver, the compensation will never be made.

Does one say that the space which separates the generator from
the receiver and which the perturbation must pass over in going from
the one to the other is not void, that it is full not only of ether, but
of air ; or even in the interplanetary spaces of some fluid subtle but

14 THE MONIST.

still ponderable; that this matter undergoes the shock like the re-
ceiver at the moment when the energy reaches it, and recoils in its
turn when the perturbation quits it? That would save the principle
of Newton, but that is not true.

If energy in its diffusion remained always attached to some
material substratum, then matter in motion would carry along light
with it, and Fizeau has demonstrated that it does nothing of the
sort, at least for air. This is what Michelson and Morley have
since confirmed.

One may suppose also that the movements of matter, properly
so called, are exactly compensated by those of the ether; but that
would lead us to the same reflections as just now. The principle so
extended would explain everything, since whatever might be the
visible movements, we would always have the power of imagining
hypothetical movements which compensated them.

But if it is able to explain everything, this is because it does not
permit us to foresee anything; it does not enable us to decide be-
tween different possible hypotheses, since it explains everything
beforehand. It therefore becomes useless.

And then the suppositions that it would be necessary to make
on the movements of the ether are not very satisfactory.

If the electric charges double, it would be natural to imagine
that the velocities of the divers atoms of ether double also, and for
the compensation, it would be necessary that the mean velocity of
the ether quadruple.

This is why I have long thought that these consequences of
theory, contrary to the principle of Newton, would end some day
by being abandoned, and yet the recent experiments on the move-
ments of the electrons issuing from radium seem rather to confirm
them.

I arrive at the principle of Lavoisier on the conservation of
masses: certes, this is one not to be touched without unsettling all
mechanics.

And now certain persons think that it seems true to us only be-
cause one considers in mechanics merely moderate velocities, but
that it would cease to be true for bodies animated by velocities com-

THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS. 15

parable to that of light. Now these velocities, it is believed at
present, they have been realised ; the cathode rays or those of radium
may be formed of very minute particles or of electrons which are
displaced with velocities smaller no doubt than that of light, but
which might be its one-tenth or one-third.

These rays can be deflected, whether by an electric field, or by
a magnetic field, and we are able by comparing these deflections, to
measure at the same time the velocity of the electrons and their mass
(or rather the relation of their mass to their charge). But when
it was seen that these velocities approached that of light, it was de-
cided that a correction was necessary.

These molecules, being electrified, could not be displaced with-
out agitating the ether; to put them in motion it is necessary to
overcome a double inertia, that of the molecule itself and that of the
ether. The total or apparent mass that one measures is composed,
therefore, of two parts: the real or mechanical mass of the mole-
cule and the electro-dynamic mass representing the inertia of the
ether.

The calculations of Abraham and the experiments of Kauf-
mann have then shown that the mechanical mass, properly so called,
is null, and that the mass of the electrons, or, at least, of the negative
electrons, is of exclusively electro-dynamic origin. This forces us
to change the definition of mass ; we cannot any longer distinguish
mechanical mass and electro-dynamic mass, since then the first would
vanish ; there is no mass other than electro-dynamic inertia. But,
in this case the mass can no longer" be constant, it augments with the
velocity, and it even depends on the direction, and a body animated
by a notable velocity will not oppose the same inertia to the forces
which tend to deflect it from its route, as to those which tend to ac-
celerate or to retard its progress.

There is still a resource; the ultimate elements of bodies are
electrons, some charged negatively, the others charged positively.
The negative electrons have no mass, this is understood; but the
positive electrons, from the little we know of them, seem much
greater. Perhaps, they have, besides their electro-dynamic mass,
a true mechanical mass. The veritable mass of a body would, then,

l6 THE MONIST.

be the sum of the mechanical masses of its positive electrons, the
negative electrons not counting; mass so defined could still be con-
stant.

Alas, this resource also evades us. Recall what we have said
of the principle of relativity and of the efforts made to save it. And
it is not merely a principle which it is a question of saving, such are
the indubitable results of the experiments of Michelson.

Lorentz has been obliged to suppose that all the forces, what-
ever be their origin, were affected with a coefficient in a medium
animated by a uniform translation; this is not sufficient, it is still
necessary, says he, that the masses of all the particles be influenced
by a translation to the same degree as the electro-magnetic masses
of the electrons.

So the mechanical masses will vary in accordance with the same
laws as the electro-dynamic masses; they cannot, therefore, be con-
stant.

Need I point out that the fall of the principle of Lavoisier in-
volves that of the principle of Newton? This latter signifies that
the center of gravity of an isolated system moves in a straight line ;
but if there is no longer a constant mass, there is no longer a center
of gravity, we no longer know even what this is. This is why I
said above that the experiments on the cathode rays appeared to
justify the doubts of Lorentz on the subject of the principle of
Newton.

From all these results, if they are confirmed, would arise an
entirely new mechanics, which would be, above all, characterised by
this fact, that no velocity could surpass that of light, any more than
any temperature could fall below the zero absolute, because bodies
would oppose an increasing inertia to the causes, wlueh would tend
to accelerate their motion; and this inertia would become infinite
when one approached the velocity of light.

No more for an observer carried along himself in a translation
he did not suspect could any apparent velocity surpass that of light ;
and this would be then a contradiction, if we recall that this observer
would not use the same clocks as a fixed observer, but, indeed,
clocks marking "local time."

THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS. IJ

Here we are then facing a question I content myself with
stating. If there is no longer any mass, what becomes of the law
of Newton?

Mass has two aspects, it is at the same time a coefficient of iner-
tia and an attracting mass entering as factor into Newtonian attrac-
tion. If the coefficient of inertia is not constant, can the attracting
mass be? That is the question.

At least, the principle of the conservation of energy yet remains
to us, and this seems more solid. Shall I recall to you how it was
in its turn thrown into discredit? This event has made more noise
than the preceding and it is in all the memoirs.

From the first works of Becquerel, and, above all, when the
Curies had discovered radium, one saw that every radio-active body
was an inexhaustible source of radiations. Its activity would seem
to subsist without alteration throughout the months and the years.
This was already a strain on the principles : these radiations were in
fact energy, and from the same morsel of radium this issued and for-
ever issued. But these quantities of energy were too slight to be
measured ; at least one believed so and was not much disquieted.

The scene changed when Curie bethought himself to put radium
in a calorimeter ; one saw, then, that the quantity of heat incessantly
created was very notable.

The explanations proposed were numerous ; but in such case
we cannot say, "store is no sore."

In so far as no one of them has prevailed over the others, we
cannot be sure there is a good one among them.

Sir W. Ramsay has striven to show that radium is in process
of transformation, that it contains a store of energy enormous but
not inexhaustible.

The transformation of radium then would produce a million
times more of heat than all known transformations ; radium would
wear itself out in 1250 years; you see that we are at least certain
to be settled on this point some hundreds of years from now. While
waiting our doubts remain.

In the midst of so many ruins what remains standing? The
principle of least action is hitherto intact, and Larmor appears to

l8 THE MONIST.

believe that it will long survive the others ; in reality, it is still more
vague and more general.

In presence of this general ruin of the principles, what attitude
will mathematical physics take?

And first, before too much excitement, it is proper to ask if all
that is really true. All these derogations to the principles are en-
countered only among infinitesimals ; the microscope is necessary to
see the Brownian movement ; electrons are very light ; radium is very
rare, and one never has more than some milligrams of it at a time.

And, then, it may be asked if, beside the infinitesimal seen,
there be not another infinitesimal unseen counterpoise to the first.

So, there is an interlocutory question, and, as it seems, only
experiment can solve it. We have, therefore, only to hand over the
matter to the experimenters, and while waiting for them to finally
decide the debate, not to preoccupy ourselves with these disquieting
problems, and to tranquilly continue our work, as if the principles
were still uncontested. Certes, we have much to do without leaving
the domain where they may be applied in all security; we have
enough to employ our activity during this period of doubts.

And as to these doubts, is it indeed true that we can do nothing
to disembarrass science of them? It may be said, it is not alone ex-
perimental physics that has given birth to them ; mathematical phys-
ics has well contributed. It is the experimenters who have seen
radium throw out energy, but it is the theorists who have put in
evidence all the difficulties raised by the propagation of light across
a medium in motion ; but for these it is probable we should not have
become conscious of them. Well, then, if they have done their best
to put us into this embarrassment, it is proper also that they help us
to get out of it.

They must subject to critical examination all these new views
I have just outlined before you, and abandon the principles only
after having made a loyal effort to save them.

What can they do in this sense ? That is what I will try to ex-
plain.

Among the most interesting problems of mathematical physics,
it is proper to give a special place to those relating to the kinetic

THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS. IQ

theory of gases. Much has already been done in this direction, but
much still remains to be done. This theory is an eternal paradox.
We have reversibility in the premises and irreversibility in the con-
clusions; and between the two an abyss. Statistic considerations,
the law of great numbers, do they suffice to fill it? Many points
still remain obscure to which it is necessary to return, and doubtless
many times. In clearing them up, we will undersand better the
sense of the principle of Carnot and its place in the ensemble of
dynamics, and we will be better armed to properly interpret the
curious experiment of Gouy, of which I spoke above.

Should we not also endeavor to obtain a more satisfactory
theory of the electro-dynamics of bodies in motion? It is there es-
pecially, as I have sufficiently shown above, that difficulties acumu-
late. Evidently we must heap up hypotheses, we cannot satisfy all
the principles at once ; heretofore, one has succeeded in safeguarding
some only on condition of sacrificing the others; but all hope of
obtaining better results is not yet lost. Let us take, therefore, the
theory of Lorentz, turn it in all senses, modify it little by little, and
perhaps everything will arrange itself.

Thus in place of supposing that bodies in motion undergo a
contraction in the sense of the motion, and that this contraction is
the same whatever be the nature of these bodies and the forces to
which they are otherwise submitted, could we not make an hypoth-
esis more simple and more natural?

We might imagine, for example, that it is the ether which is
modified when it is in relative motion in reference to the material
medium which it penetrates, that when it is thus modified, it no
longer transmits perturbations with the same velocity in every direc-
tion. It might transmit more rapidly those which are propagated
parallel to the medium, whether in the same sense or in the opposite
sense, and less rapidly those which are propagated perpendicularly.
The wave surfaces would no longer be spheres, but ellipsoids, and we
could dispense with that extraordinary contraction of all bodies.

I cite that only as an example, since the modifications, one might
essay, would be evidently susceptible of infinite variation.

It is possible also that astronomy may some day furnish us data

2O THE MONIST.

on this point; she it was in the main who raised the question in
making us acquainted with the phenomenon of the aberration of
light. If we make crudely the theory of aberration, we reach a very
curious result. The apparent positions of the stars differ from their
real positions because of the motion of the earth, and as this motion
is variable, these apparent positions vary. The real position we can-
not know, but we can observe the variations of the apparent posi-
tion. The observations of the aberration show us, therefore, not
the movement of the earth, but the variations of this movement :
they cannot, therefore, give us information about the absolute mo-
tion of the earth. At least this is true in first approximation, but
it would be no longer the same if we could appreciate the thou-
sandths of a second. Then it would be seen that the amplitude of
the oscillation depends not alone on the variation of the motion,
variation which is well known, since it is the motion of our globe
on its elliptic orbit, but on the mean value of this motion; so that
the constant of aberration would not be altogether the same for all
the stars, and the differences would tell us the absolute motion of
the earth in space.

This, then, would be, under another form, the ruin of the prin-
ciple of relativity. We are far, it is true, from appreciating the
thousandths of a second, but after all, say some, the total absolute
velocity of the earth may be much greater than its relative velocity
with respect to the sun. If, for example, it were 300 kilometers per
second in place of 30, this would suffice to make the phenomena ob-
servable.

I believe that in reasoning thus one admits a too simple theory
of aberration. Michelson has shown us, I have told you, that the
physical procedures are powerless to put in evidence absolute mo-
tion; I am persuaded that the same will be true of the astronomic
procedures, however far one pushes precision.

However that may be, the data astronomy will furnish us in
this regard will some day be precious to the physicist. While wait-
ing, I believe, the theorists, recalling the experience of Michelson,
may anticipate a negative result, and that they would accomplish a

THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS. 21

useful work in constructing a theory of aberration which would ex-
plain this in advance.

But let us come back to the earth. There also we may aid the
experimenters. We can, for example, prepare the ground by study-
ing profoundly the dynamics of electrons ; not be it understood in
starting from a single hypothesis, but in multiplying hypotheses as
much as possible. It will be then for the physicists to utilise our
work in seeking the crucial experiment to decide between these dif-
ferent hypotheses.

This dynamics of electrons can be approached from many sides,
but among the ways leading thither is one which has been some-
what neglected, and yet this is one of those which promise us most
of surprises. It is the movements of the electrons which produce
the line of the emission spectra ; this is proved by the phenomenon of
Zeemann ; in an incandescent body, what vibrates is sensitive to the
magnet, therefore electrified. This is a very important first point,
but no one has gone farther ; why are the lines of the spectrum dis-
tributed in accordance with a regular law ?

These laws have been studied by the experimenters in their least
details ; they are very precise and relatively simple. The first study
of these distributions recalled the harmonics encountered in acous-
tics ; but the difference is great. Not only the numbers of vibrations
are not the successive multiples of one same number, but even we
do not find anything analogous to the roots of those transcendental
equations to which so many problems of mathematical physics con-
duct us: that of the vibrations of an elastic body of any form, that
of the Hertzian oscillations in a generator of any form, the problem
of Fourier for the cooling of a solid body.

The laws are simpler, but they are of wholly other nature, and
to cite only one of these differences, for the harmonics of high order
the number of vibrations tends toward a finite limit, instead of in-
creasing indefinitely.

That has not yet been accounted for, and I believe that there we
have one of the most important secrets of nature. Lindemann has
made a praiseworthy attempt, but, to my mind, without success ; this
attempt should be renewed. Thus we will penetrate, so to say, into

22 THE MONIST.

the inmost recess of matter. And from the particular point of view
which we to-day occupy, when we know why the vibrations of in-
candescent bodies differ from ordinary elastic vibrations, why the
electrons do not behave themselves like the matter which is familiar
to us, we will better comprehend the dynamics of electrons and it
will be perhaps more easy for us to reconcile it with the principles.

Suppose, now, that all these efforts fail, and after all I do not
believe they will, what must be done? Will it be necessary to seek
to mend the brdken principles in giving what we French call a
coup de pouce? That is evidently always possible, and I retract
nothing I have formerly said.

Have you not written, you might say if you wished to seek a
quarrel with me, have you not written that the principles, though of
experimental origin, are now unassailable by experiment because
they have become conventions ? And now you have just told us the
most recent conquests of experiment put these principles in danger.
Well, formerly I was right and to-day I am not wrong.

Formerly I was right, and what is now happening is a new proof
of it. Take for example the calorimeter experiment of Curie on
radium. Is it possible to reconcile that with the principle of the
conservation of energy ?

It has been attempted in many ways ; but there is among them
one I should like you to notice.

It has been conjectured that radium was only an intermediary,
that it only stored radiations of unknown nature which flashed
through space in every direction, traversing all bodies, save radium,
without being altered by this passage and without exercising any
action upon them. Radium alone took from them a little of their
energy and afterward gave it out to us in divers forms.

What an advantageous explanation, and how convenient ! First,
it is unverifiable and thus irrefutable. Then again it will serve to
account for any derogation whatever to the principle of Mayer; it
responds in advance not only to the objection of Curie, but to all
the objections that future experimenters might accumulate. This
energy new and unknown would serve for everything. This is just

THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS. 23

what I have said, and therewith we are shown that our principle
is unassailable by experiment.

And after all, what have we gained by this coup de pouce?

The principle is intact, but thenceforth of what use is it?

It permitted us to foresee that in such or such circumstance we
could count on such a total quantity of energy ; it limited us ; but
now that one puts at our disposition this indefinite provision of new
energy, we are limited by nothing; and, as I have written also, if a
principle ceases to be fecund, experiment without contradicting it
directy, will however have condemned it.

This, therefore, is not what would have to be done, it would be
necessary to rebuild anew.

If we were cornered down to this necessity, we should more-
over console ourselves. It would not be necessary thence to con-
clude that science can weave only a Penelope's web, that it can build
only ephemeral constructions, which it is soon forced to demolish
from top to bottom with its own hands.

As I have said, we have already passed through a like crisis.
I have shown you that in the second mathematical physics, that of
the principles, we find traces of the first, that of the central forces ;
it will be just the same if we must learn a third.

Of such an animal as exuviates, as breaks its too narrow cara-
pace and makes itself a fresh one, under the new envelop we easily
recognise the essential traits of the organism which have subsisted.

We cannot foresee in what way we are about to expand; per-
haps it is the kinetic theory of gases which is about to undergo
development and serve as model to the others. Then, the facts
which first appeared to us as simple, thereafter will be merely re-
sults of a very great number of elementary facts which only the laws
of chance make co-operate for a common end. Physical law will then
take an entirely new aspect ; it will no longer be solely a differential
equation, it will take the character of a statistical law.

Perhaps likewise, we should construct a whole new mechanics,
that we only succeed in catching a glimpse of, where inertia in-
creasing with the velocity, the velocity of light would become an im-
passable limit.

24 THE MONIST.

The ordinary mechanics, more simple, would remain a first ap-
proximation, since it would be true for velocities not too great, so
that one would still find the old dynamics under the new.

We should not have to regret having believed in the principles,
and even, since velocities too great for the old formulas would al-
ways be only exceptional, the surest way in practice would be still
to act as if we continued to believe in them. They are so useful, it
would be necessary to keep a place for them. To determine to ex-
clude them altogether, would be to deprive oneself of a precious
weapon. I hasten to say in conclusion we are not yet there, and as
yet nothing proves that the principles will not come forth from the
combat victorious and intact.

HENRI POINCARE.

PARIS, FRANCE.

MEANING OF THE EPITHET NAZOREAN
(NAZARENE).1

(Read before the Section of New Testament, Congress of Arts and
Science, St. Louis, September 23, 1904.)

*'T)E1NG warned (of God) in a dream, he withdrew into the
*~* parts of Galilee, and came and dwelt in a city called Naza-
reth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the
prophets, that he should be called Nazorean." (Matt. ii. 22b, 23.)
The unhistoricity of the Matthean no less than of the Lucan
prehistory is conceded in critical circles. Thus, even Zahn says:
(Das Evang. des Matth., p. 109) : "Not the silence of Josephus. . . .
but the narrative of Luke (ii. 21, 22, 39), which appears to exclude
the total content of Matt, ii, can arouse serious scruples," and these
he makes no attempt to lay. All the more firmly is the birth, or at
least the early residence, in Nazareth everywhere upheld, if not
assumed, as beyond question. So too the correctness of Matthew's
etymology, "Nazorean" from Nazareth. But here difficulties begin
to gather.

i. The reason assigned seems unreal. Nowhere is it spoken
through the prophets, "He shall be called Nazorean," nor anything
nearly equivalent. Zahn exposes the emptiness of all other expla-
nations but Hofmann's, which he adopts in piety only, though itself

1 In the transcription of Greek, Hebrew, and other alphabets :
ch stands for the guttural h, frequently transcribed as an underdotted

h or kh, to be pronounced like the German ch in acht.
sh is nearest to the English sound sh.
g denotes the German s, a sharp sibilant pronounced ts, sometimes

transcribed by underdotted s. EDITOR.

26 THE MONIST.

the emptiest of all, namely : that it was spoken by the prophets that
he should be misunderstood and lowly, which Matthew would ex-
press by the term Nazorean. But the bald fact is that He was called
(the) Nazorean without any even remote allusion to lowliness or
misunderstanding, and this single fact it is that Matthew would ex-
plain by early residence in Nazareth. The inevitable suggestion
then is this: The Jesus was called (Ho) Nazoraios. Since this fact
was most important, the Evangelist thought it must be spoken by the
prophets, who had foretold all things of the Messiah. Moreover,
it had to be explained some way, and the least objectionable way was
to derive it from a place of early residence. Accordingly, this datum
of childhood in Nazareth would take its place side by side with other
data of the prehistory, as the visit of magi, the massacre of infants,
the flight into Egypt. All are in fact of a piece ; why should one be
taken, and the other left?

2. The "city called Nazareth'' seems to be a geographical ima-
gination ; it is unmentioned in the Old Testament, in the Talmud,2
in Josephus, in Apocrypha. The first notice of it is in Eusebius,
quoting professedly from Julius Africanus ; the next, in Jerome,
is worse than none at all ; next Epiphanius speaks of it along with
several Galilean places as inhabited down to Constantine exclusively
by Jews (no Pagans, no Samaritans, no Christians). These men-
tions signify nothing as to the pre-Christian reality of Nazareth.
For they are all perfunctory. Themselves believing, of course, in
the actuality of the city, the writers could hardly fail to mention it
in such connections, whether or not it was bodily there. Again,
even if there was a so-named village there in the third or fourth
century, nothing would follow as to it or its name before the first.
After the notion of the early life of Jesus in "a city called Nazareth"
had been firmly established, we may be sure that the city itself
would not long be wanting. Two or three centuries would be quite
long enough for its genesis or new-naming. The silence of con-
temporary and earlier history is of course not conclusive, but it is
the strongest negative evidence possible. We cannot expect the

2 Which names 63 cities of Galilee.

MEANING OF THE EPITHET NAZOREAN. 27

unprophetic historian to say : "In this region 'a city called Nazareth'
does not exist."

3. Nazareth cuts no figure at all in the tradition concerning
Jesus. Not Nazareth but Chephar Nachum is called "his city."
So all the moderns, with Chrysostom and common sense, — against
Jerome. There he was "at home," according to Mark ii. I. There
was the scene of his first preaching, and triumphs, and friendships.
This could hardly have been, if Nazareth had been his home. True,
both Matthew and Mark tell of his going into his patris, but they do
not (against Graetz, Frankel's Monatsschrift, 29, 482) say what
was the patris, a strange omission! Why did they not say Nazareth,
if they meant it? This pericope (Matt, xiii 53-58, Mark vi. 1-6) it
seems, is meant merely to visualise the proverb, "A prophet is not
without honor save in his patris" (Judea? Judaism?) : it testifies
not for, but against, the geographic entity of Nazareth. Luke, in-
deed, is explicit. He mentions Nazareth and tells how they led him
to the "brow of the hill," in order to throw him down (iv. 16-30), —
all this at the beginning of his ministry, against the earlier report in
Matthew and Mark! But this Lucan form is plainly a much later
elaboration, and testifies to nothing but the hand of the reviser ( See
Keim, Jesus von Nazara, II, p. 19 f., 425). So, too, the phrase, "he
from Nazareth," is simply a later variation of "the Nazorean," just
as our English versions say "this Jesus of Nazareth," where the
Greek says "this Jesus the Nazorean" (Acts vi. 14).

Similarly, of Nathanael's question, "Can ought good come out
of Nazareth?" (J. i. 47). The deep symbolism of this whole section
we make no attempt here to sound. Enough that it is clearly sym-
bolism, and not history, and bears no witness worth mention to a
topographical Nazareth. (Nathanael, otherwise unknown, seems
to be the notable pre-Christian Gnostic, Dositheus.)

4. But if the testimony of the New Testament is thus hesitating
and indecisive concerning "the city," and appears only in the later
strata of tradition, being entirely absent from the earlier, an ex-
ceedingly strong negative indication, the same can not be said of the
epithet (the) Nazorean. This occurs repeatedly in apparently the
oldest layers of the Gospel story, without any suggestion of tend-

28 THE MONIST.

ency, especially in Acts, and more than all, it is used in the plural
as the name of the new religionists (xxiv. 5) : Tertullys describes
Paul as a ringleader of the heresy of "the Nazoreans." It seems
impossible that this name should have become their vulgar desig-
nation, unless it had been a very early and important designation.
Moreover, we know that it was used in the Talmud and Koran, and
is still used by the Oriental Christians. In Mark the epithet is so
distinctive that it is put into the mouth of the maid as the name of
the arrested one: "Thou also wast with the Nazarene (the Jesus)"
(xiv. 67). All this indicates that this epithet was from the start
highly distinctive and familiar, a name in itself, which would be
passing strange, if it was indeed derived from a most obscure vil-
lage otherwise unknown. This comes out clearly in the Hebrew-
speaking voice to Paul: "I am Jesus the Nazorean" (A. xxii. 8).
The epithet is quite unnecessary for identification, in two of the
three reports it is omitted : its presence in this one shows that it was
originally an integral part of the whole name, and as such it must
have had important meaning and have pointed to something else
than a wholly indifferent early residence in Nazareth.

5. The name "the Nazoreans" occurs in the Talmud unmistak-
ably denoting the Christians (b. Taan. 27b). " 'Why did they not
fast on the day after the Sabbath?' Rabbi Jochanan replied: 'Be-
cause of the Nazoreans'" (Mipne ha-No^nm). Now this word
Nojjrim was perfectly familiar to the .Hebrew and had been for
hundreds of years. It occurs repeatedly in the Old Testament, as
in 2 K. xvii. 9, xviii. 8, Jer. xxxi. 6, and always in the one sense of
guards, watchers. The root na%ar is one of the best known in the
Semitic languages, and its meaning is perfectly definite and well
ascertained : to watch, observe, keep, guard, defend, preserve. In
this sense it is constant in the Old Testament, occurring 63 times,
the desibilated form natar 10 times. But it is much older than the
Hebrew Scriptures. It is frequent in the Cuneiform inscriptions.
Thus, V. R., 8: 65-67, "and Abiyati, son of Ti-i-i-ri, not meditated
good, not kept oath (la na-$ir ma-mit) of gods mighty" ; and V. R.
i. 115, "Guards (Ma^arati} upon those of days before" ; in the Code
of CHammurabi (2250 B. C.) it occurs 7 times, as 23, 66 and 24, 6f

MEANING OF THE EPITHET NAZOREAN. 2Q

"in case watchful was she and. ..." (shum-ma na-a^-ra-at-ma . . . . ),
as in 30, 47, "estate they shall preserve" (bitam i-na-%a-ru). The
popularity and familiarity of the word are attested by the regular
use of its imperative (u%ur for nu%ur) in forming proper names,
as N abu-kudurri-u^ur (Nabu, landmark mine defend), Bel-shar-
u$ur (God save the King), etc. — also in such phrases as bit ni-$ir-ti
= house of treasure. The use of the segholate ne\er in the sense of
sprout, shoot, branch, is only occasional, thrice in Isaiah, once in
Daniel, and may here be left out of account, since it could not yield
the plural noftrim and has naught to do with the matter in hand.
Now, since ha-No%rim was thus the perfectly familiar term for the
Guards, the Preservers, it follows that when the term was used, or
its Greek equivalent., Hoi Nasoraioi, the suggestion of the well-
known meaning was inevitable. Even if the name had actually been
derived from the hamlet of Nazareth, no one would have thought
so, every one would have turned to the household meaning, instantly
and irresistibly. If a class of persons were called the Preservers,
every one would understand it so. as they that preserve ; no one
would dream of deriving their name from the unknown village of
Preserveth. We insist upon this, because it seems decisive.

6. But what of the singular, Ho Nasoraios or Ha-No%ri ? This
is the single point, not so much of difficulty as of uncertainty, for
several possibilities lie open. The Old Testament singular of No$-
rim is Nb^er, the participle of na%ar, frequently occurring. The
termination " is generally used to designate local derivations, but
not uniformly ; it is added to other nouns than those of place, to ad-
jectives also, and even to prepositions, sometimes apparently for
emphasis, with little change in meaning, as is noted by Green,
Stade, and other Hebraists ; similarly in Syriac Noldeke speaks of
its frequent parasitic presence (Kursgefasste Syrische Grammatik).
Among many examples the nearest parallel seems to be "Di. The
root combines queerly enough the opposite ideas of knowing and
not knowing. From the latter comes ij;; = stranger used thirty-
five times in the Old Testament ; also 153 = strange, used once ;
also 13;: = stranger, once ; but "n.3^ = stranger, forty-five times.

3O THE MONIST.

There is no reason, then, why notfi may not be formed from no%er
without real change of meaning.

Secondly, nogri may very well be a Rabbinic disguise for no$er.
Possibly the Talmudists wished to deform the name slightly, as
often the names they disliked. Thus, the appellative of the rational-
istic Bible critic, CHivi, they changed from al-Balkhi to al-Kalbi
(JBL XXIII, 6), and Evangelion they turned into Avon- or Aven-
giljon (b. Shabb. n6a). Possibly they formed Ha-No^rl on the
basis of a Christian Evangelic tradition that Jesus was of Nagara.
The form Ndftri cannot indeed come from Nagara, but requires a
No3era as the town-name, as Herford perceives. He thinks no^era
may have been the local Galilean pronunciation. More likely that
the Talmudists slightly bent the name no^er, as if it were no%ri from
no$era. Possibly the * was added, as in a good many cases, to per-
sonalise more sharply the participle, somewhat as we say the guard
and also the guardian.

Still another possibility, however, and an extremely attractive
one, is this: the " may be a fragment representing the divine name
YHVH.3 If so, then the full primitive appellative was Nasoraios
for NZRYH, Watch of Jehovah, or Jehovah the Keeper. This sug-
gestion is strongly recommended by this fact: In the "name of the
Restitution" of Marcus we find the form 'Ii/o-ov Na£apia. Marcus
is supposed to have been a second-century heretic, but he was cer-
tainly a most important one, to judge from Irenaeus and Hippolytus,
and his "name of the Restitution": "Anointed and redeemed am I
from Soul and from all judgment by Yah (dyh) ; redeem (my) soul,
O Jesu Nazaria," seems to be extremely old; it is given in Syriac
but not understood by Irenseus (I. xiv. 2). Such a formula would
very naturally and probably harken back to the highest antiquity.
We note, further, that the redemption is in the name of Yah, and
Jesus is invoked as Nazar-Ya'. This latter is the only Syriac form,
as appears from the Peshito and from Payne Smith's Thesaurus
Syriacus. (The latter of course assumes the derivation of Na$ar-ya'
from Nazareth, but makes no attempt to justify the assumption.)

3 As in "QHi (Nachbi~) — "Comforter is Yah," Num. xiii. 14.

MEANING OF THE EPITHET NAZOREAN. 3!

All of which points to this latter as the very oldest form of the appel-
lative and as involving the divine name Yah or Yahveh, precisely
as Zacharyah and the multitude of names ending in iah.

It must be remembered that the Syriac termination Ya' is
exactly the same in Nasar-ya' as, e. g., in Z'char-ya' bar B'rach-ya'
(Mt. XXIII. 35), and regularly represents the n, (Yah} of the
Hebrew. It would be very strange if this termination had an alto-
gether unique gentilicial reference in Nasar-ya'. Moreover, it is
at once perceived that in the formula of Marcus any local derivative
is utterly out of place ; the epithet, Nazar-ya', must be charged with
weighty meaning. Similarly, in the trilingual inscription on the
Cross (J. xix. 19), it seems impossible that the epithet Nazorean
(Na^ar-ya') should mean "of Nazareth," a village in Galilee over
which Pilate had no jurisdiction.4 It must tell not of the home but
of the nature, the character, the personality.

Be this as it may, it seems reasonably certain that Nazoraios
had originally nothing to do with the imaginary village Nazareth;
that it was a descriptive appellative, like others so commonly ap-
pended to divine names, both classic and Semitic (cp. Zeus Xenios,
Hermes Psychopompos, Dionysos Hypokolpios, Apollo Pythios, and
the like) ; that it designated some divine power in the aspect, char-
acter, or person of Guardian, Preserver, being nearly identical in
meaning with 6 'I^o-ovs, the Saviour, and the pure Greek term pre-
ferred by the Gnostics but disowned by the Old Catholics, 6 Swri/p.
It must be remarked that this salvation was especially from demons
and from sin, the work of demons. Hence the title, 6 'IT/O-OVS, was
the name that was specially and exclusively invoked in casting out
demons and in primitive baptism, which was primarily the washing
away of spiritual uncleanness due to demons.

It should be added that both Neubauer (La Geographic du Tal-
mud, 190) and Gratz (/. c.) think to find Nazareth in the Talmud,
and both with the same unreason. In Josh. xix. 15 are enumerated
as belonging to Zebulun the cities : "And Kattath, and Nahallal, and
Shimron, and Idalah, and Beth-lehem: twelve cities and their vil-

* As Dr. Paul Carus acutely suggests.

32 THE MONIST.

lages." The Talmud (Megilla 7oa) repeats this list in slightly
varied form, preserving the name Beth-lehem but adding Zerye'h
(iT"iX crprTD). Now Neubauer and Gratz insert the letter : before
X and vocalise the result into Nozeryyah, which is not wholly unlike
Nazareth! Hence Neubauer thinks we should translate the Tal-
mudic passage thus: Bethlehem near Nazareth, according to which
the utterly obscure village of Nazareth was so much more important
than the ancient historic city of Bethlehem that the latter had to be
defined by reference to the former! Gratz perceives the improb-
ability and hence translates his conjectural text thus: Bethlehem of
Nazareth, understanding Nazareth as a post-exilic name for Galilee,
in direct contradiction of the Evangelic phrase "Nazareth of Gali-
lee," and this conjecture is adopted by Cheyne, to whom belongs the
credit of explicitly stamping the "city called Nazareth" as a fiction
(Enc. Bibl., Art. "Nazareth"). But if Nazareth was such a familiar
name of Galilee as to make Nazorean preferred to Galilean as a
gentilicium, assuredly we should have heard of it. The fact is that
Neubauer and Gratz have found Nazareth in the Talmud only be-
cause they sought it there. He who seeks shall find. But the word
is not there, and neither scholar offers any reason for inserting
the :. Closer inspection shows, first, that the Masoretic text of
Joshua is maimed, since only five cities are named, not twelve, and
the Septuagint omits the final clause; secondly, that the Zerye'h is
most likely derived from the oft-recurring, very similarly written
liTSVCfl (ychaireken) •=• " and their villages," only four words below.
Certainly the nearest-lying supposition is that the Talmudic text
or its source, like the defective Masoretic text, meant to say some-
thing about the cities and their villages. Hence the ingenious con-
jectures of Neubauer, Gratz, and Cheyne, not to mention Halevy
and Wellhausen, appear both needless and unwarranted. Neither
do they nearly touch the heart of the matter, which is that by every
token Na^ar-ya' was primarily like 6 'Iifo-ovs and 6 Sony/a, an appel-
lative of a god?

5 That "IJt'i was at some time felt to involve a Messianic reference, seems
hinted in the large j with which it is written in Ex. xxxiv. 7, as Zuschlag
has observed.

MEANING OF THE EPITHET NAZOREAN. 33

The question remains, whence the Marcan form Nazarene
( Na£ap7;vos ) ? It is commonly derived from Nazara, as Magdalene
from Magdala ; but, in spite of Keim and his learned note, this form
Nazara is too feebly attested. In reality the form Na^ap^vos explains
itself when we recall that in Aram.Tean, according to Dalman (Ara-
m'disch-neuhebr'disches Worterbuch, page 257), the word Natrona'
(KIYTOi) means "defender" (Beschutzer) , which at once yields Nas-
arene, the Aramaic t (tt) corresponding to the Hebrew ts (s).
Na$ar-ya' remains in all likelihood the most primitive form, since
the Marcosian "name of restitution" far antedates any manuscript
of our second Gospel.

Since the foregoing was written, we have lit upon a most deci-
sive confirmation. In the Paris Papyrus, at line 3119-20, we read:

.... 6p/a'£w (re Kara TOV 6f.ov TOJV *EfJpa.i<av 'Irjcrov ta^aiarj .... and Other

meaningless alphabetic combinations apparently to be sung (these
latter seem to be documentary specimens of the "speech in tongues"
of Acts and first Corinthians). "I adjure thee by the God of the
Hebrews, Jesus." This "Logos" is declared to be "Hebraic," it is
full of the Old Testament, it is assigned by the Papyrus editor,
Dieterich, positively to the Essenes or Therapeutae, who were cer-
tainly pre-Christian, and it itself is surely not post-Christian. There
is in the whole "Logos" not a trace of Christian influence. That
"Jesus" is herein called "the God of the Hebrews," of itself implies
that the document is at least as old as the beginning of our era.
At this date, therefore, we find that "Jesus" was the name used
in conjurations for "the God of the Hebrews" — a fact whose im-
portance it seems impossible to overrate.6

6 It must not be supposed that the results attained exclude the possibility
that there arose in some minds at some time a confusion of the terms and the
notions ^!M and TT^ (nazir, Nazirite), especially as the LXX rendered T by C
and x generally by a, but not always, sometimes by C, thus yyy — oi>£ (Gen.
x. 23). It is possible that the writer of Mt ii. 23 remembered Ju. xiii. 5 (he
shall be a Nazir of God etc.), and so was emboldened to use the phrase,
"through the prophets." But of these and other minor points lack of time
forbids discussion.

34 THE MONIST.

II.

It did not fall within the scope of the foregoing investigation
to discuss the heresiographic testimony, in particular of Epiphanius,
touching the primitive sect of the "Nazaraioi." That investigation
was in its conception almost purely philologic, and its design was
to establish whatever conclusions seemed recommended, as at least
highly probable, on the sole basis of certain linguistic facts. In ac-
cordance with the critical method already exemplified by the writer
in a series of New Testament studies, it was intended to elicit the
full evidence of these facts uncomplicated with any suggestions or
modifications that might proceed from the consideration of any other
foreign body of facts however closely related to the matter in hand.
But this accomplished, it now becomes our duty to fix our attention
on this other body of testimony and to interpret it naturally and so
far as possible in utter forgetfulness of the results already attained.
If such interpretation confirms these results, well and good, — by
the mouths of two independent witnesses our conclusions have been
established; but if there be any serious discrepance between the
two sets of results, then there has been some error in our work,
which must be detected and corrected. We may state in advance
that this testimony, found in the Panarion of Epiphanius,7 proves to
be very elaborate and explicit, and while not free from obscurity and
even contradiction ("den confusen Angaben des Epiphanius," Har-
nack, D 63, I. 288), it is none the less unambiguous and conclusive
as to the main issue, it is in fact the end of controversy.

After describing briefly the heresy of the Daily Bathers (Hem-
erobaptists), Epiphanius sets himself "to expound that of the Naza-
raioi, who are Jews by race, taking their start from Galaaditis
and Basinitis and the (regions) beyond the Jordan, as the report
that has reached us comprehends, which, being of Israel itself,
Judaises in all things, thinking scarcely aught beyond the afore-
mentioned (sects). For circumcision exactly so it possessed, Sab-

'Hseres. XVIII., Kara Nafa/oawv and XXIX., Kaar

MEANING OF THE EPITHET NAZOREAN. 35

ith the same it kept, feasts the same it persevered in, not however
(the notion of) destiny it introduced, nor astronomy. And (the)
Fathers it received, those in the Pentateuch from Adam to Moses,
those that were conspicuous by virtue of godliness, — I mean Adam,
and Seth, and Enoch, and Methuselah, and Noah, and Abraham,
and Isaac, and Jacob, Levi too, and Aaron, and Jesus the son of
Nun. But it did not receive the Pentateuch itself, however it con-
fesses Moses, and believed what he received (as) legislation; not
this, it says, but another. Whence all the (customs) of Jews they
keep, being Jews (themselves), but sacrifice they did not sacrifice, nor
partake of animates; but it was unlawful with them to partake of
their flesh or to sacrifice them. For they assert that these books
were fabricated and that none of them proceeded from the Fathers.
This was the distinction of the Nazaraioi from the others."

The remaining (second and third) sections are devoted after
the manner of Epiphanius to a refutation of these heretics, which
however does not concern us.

We observe that these Nazaraioi are Jews, that they are localised
east of the Jordan, are vegetarians, are heterodox in rejecting the
inspiration and authority of the Hebrew Scriptures. There is no
suggestion of Christianity about them. Neither are they Nazirites
(Naziraioi), whom Epiphanius mentions hereafter; in no particular
do they resemble these latter, they are rather antipodal, their prac-
tice being directly counter to that prescribed for the Nazir (Num,
vi.). Petavius then errs as widely as possible in writing "Nazarsei
veteres a^VW proprie vocati, quasi sancti, et separati;" but these
words are extremely interesting as the counsel of desperation. It
appears then that both the name Nazaraioi and they that bore it
were before Christianity and independent of Christianity. Hence
the name can not be derived from any early residence of Jesus in
Nazareth, nor indeed with the least probability from Nazareth at
all. It is next to impossible that a sect located beyond the Jordan
should take its name from an insignificant village on this side of the
Jordan.

What evasions are possible? It can not be that Epiphanius
is speaking of a sect that arose after Christ, else he would have

36 THE MONIST.

dropped some hint to that effect ; moreover, and this is decisive, he
afterwards declares explicitly (XXIX. 6) that the Nasaraioi were
"before Christ."

The name here used is Nazaraioi, whereas the form commonly
used, as in the New Testament and elsewhere by Epiphanius him-
self, is Nazoraioi. But no one is likely to claim that this is more
than a difference in spelling of the same word. The irritating con-
fusion of the vowels a and o is one of the first things to repel the
student of Syriac. Both forms present themselves in New Testa-
ment manuscripts, as at Mk. x. 47, L. xviii. 37, xxiv. 19, so that
no one can say with certainty which of the vowels a, o, w is to be
preferred. Perhaps all have nearly equal justification.

Can it be that Epiphanius did not know what he was talking
about? Impossible. His antiquarian learning and industry are uni-
versally admitted. Petavius indeed says dubiously, "I do not know
whether any other besides Epiphanius has mentioned such a heresy
of Jewish name." To be sure ! There was every reason why Chris-
tian writers at least should not mention them. The wonder is that
Epiphanius has constated their existence. But there is no reason
whatever for doubting his testimony that they were, whether or not
his account of them be quite accurate. It is only their name and the
fact of their being that bear on our argument.

Plowever, this is by no means the full deposition of the Bishop
of Constantia. Among Christian heresies, having treated of the
Cerinthians he proceeds (XXIX.) Kara Na£a>pauov:

"Nazoraioi follow these next in order, being along with them,
whether before them or with them or after them, nevertheless con-
temporary ; for not more accurately can I declare who succeeded
whom. For just as I said, they were contemporary with one an-
other, and similar the opinions they cherished. For these applied
to themselves the name not indeed of Christ, nor even the name of
the Jesus, but of Nazoraioi. And all Christians then were likewise
called Nazoraioi. But it happened for a little time they were called
Jessaioi, before the disciples began to be called Christians at An-
tioch. And they were called Jessaioi on account of Jesse, I think."
There follows a very prolix dissertation on the royalty and the priest-

MEANING OF THE EPITHET NAZOREAN. 37

hood, in elaboration of this idea, none of which has any bearing on
our inquiry. Epiphanius concludes it finally and proceeds:

"And there is much to say about this. But, nevertheless, since
I have come to that point, to say for what cause they were called
Jessaioi, before being called Christians, they that had believed on
Christ, (it was) for this reason, we said, that Jesse was the father
of David. And either from Jesse or, from the name of Jesus our
Lord they were called Jessaioi, on account of their starting from
Jesus, being his disciples, or on account of the etymology of the
name of the Lord. For Jesus in the Hebrew dialect is called (sig-
nifies) curator (OepairevTrjs} , that is, Physician and Saviour. Any-
way, with this name, before their being called Christians, they were
dubbed as a surname. But from Antioch, as we have noted above,
as is the basis of the truth, began the disciples and all the Church
of God to be called Christian." — Epiphanius then proceeds to iden-
tify these extremely interesting Jessaioi with the subjects of the
well-known writings of Philo, supposed to deal with the Essaioi
or Essenoi, whether correctly or incorrectly we cannot here discuss.
He then continues :

"As accordingly they were then called Jessaioi, for a little time
after the ascension of the Saviour, and Marcus' having preached in
the land of the Egyptians, about those times some went out again,
followers indeed of the apostles, I mean those there appear to me
evidently Nazoraioi, being Jews by race and adhering to the Law,
and practicing circumcision; but as persons beholding a fire from
a lookout, and not thinking for what cause they had kindled this fire,
or what useful purpose, do it, whether preparing the provisions of
their life for eating by means of the fire, or for getting rid of some
inflammable sticks or twigs such as are wont to be consumed by
fire, — so also they themselves, imitating, lighting up a fire, burned
themselves. For having heard only Jesus' name and having beheld
the divine signs wrought by the hands of the apostles, they them-
selves also believe on Jesus. And knowing him as of Nazaret, con-
ceived in womb, and brought up in Joseph's house, and therefore
in the Gospel called Jesus the Nazoraios, as also the apostles say,
"Jesus the Nazoraios, a man approved both by signs and wonders,"

38 THE MONIST.

and so forth, this name they impose upon themselves, to be called
Nazoraioi, but not Naziraioi, which is interpreted "sanctified." For
this was of old the prerogative (d&'w/Aa) of the first-born, and those
consecrated to God, one of whom was Sampson, and others after
him and before him many. Yea, John the Baptist also was himself
one of these same vanguards of God, and wine and fermented liquor
he did not drink. For this was the policy appointed for such men
as befitting their dignity ( d£«i>/*a ) .

"But others called themselves Nasaraioi. For the heresy of
the Nasaraioi was before Christ and knew not Christ. But all men
called the Christians Nazoraioi, as I said before, as say accusers of
Paul the Apostle : 'This man we found pestilent and perverting the
people, being ringleader too of the heresy of the Nazoraioi.' And
the holy Apostle denies not the name, not confessing the heresy of
these, but gladly accepting the name imposed upon him, by the
malignity of the gainsayers on account of the Christ. For he says
on the bema : 'Neither in the temple found they me disputing against
any one, nor making any riot of the crowd, nor of what things they
accuse me have I done aught. But I confess thee this, that accord-
ing to the way which these call heresy, do I worship, believing all
that is in the Law and the Prophets.' And no wonder that the
Apostle confesses himself Nazoraios, (as) all (were) then calling
the Christians by this name, on account of Nazaret the city, there
being no other use for the name at the time, so as for men to call
those that had believed in the Christ, about whom it has been writ-
ten, 'that he shall be called Nazoraios.' For men even now by the
same name call all the heresies Christian, I mean both Manicheans
and Marcionists, both Gnostics and others, that are not Christians ;
and yet each heresy, although called otherwise, receives this (name)
rejoicing, because by the name it is adorned. For they think to be
magnified by the name of the Christ, not indeed by the faith and
the works. So also the holy disciples of the Christ called themselves
then disciples of Jesus, as indeed they also were ; but hearing them-
selves (called) of others Nazoraioi, they did not disclaim, seeing the
aim of those calling them this, because they called them (so) on ac-
count of Christ ; since also the Lord Jesus himself was called Nazo-

MEANING OF THE EPITHET NAZOREAN. 39

raios,as the Gospels have it, and the Acts of the Apostles ; on account
of his having been brought up in the city of Nazaret, which however
is now a village, in Joseph's house, having been generated according
to flesh in Bethlehem from Mary the ever-virginal, the betrothed
to Joseph the immigrant in the same Nazaret, after, having changed
from Bethlehem, he had settled down in Galilee.

"But these the afore-mentioned heretics, about whom we are
here making our narration, passing by the name of the Jesus, neither
called themselves Jessaioi, nor retained the name of the Jews, nor
surnamed themselves Christians, but Nazoraioi, plainly from the
surname of the place, the Nazaret. But in all regards they are Jews,
and nothing other. And these use not only (the) New Covenant
but also (the) Old, just as also the Jews. For there have not been
renounced among them Law, and Prophets, and Scriptures, these
called Biblia (Hagiographa) among Jews, as among the afore-
mentioned ; nor aught else do these think but according to the
preaching of the Law, and as the Jews all things exactly they con-
fess, except indeed the having believed on Christ. For among
them also resurrection of (the) dead is confessed, and that the uni-
verse has been generated from God. And God they proclaim as
One, and his child Jesus Christ. And in Hebrew dialect accurately
they are versed. For among them all the Law, and the Prophets,
and the Hagiographa (so-) called, I mean the Stichere, and the
Kings and Paralipomena, and Esther, and all the others are read
in Hebrew, as of course also among Jews. In this alone they differ
from Jews and Christians, not according with Jews on account of
(their) believing on Christ, and not agreeing with Christians on
account of their being still fettered by Law, both circumcision and
Sabbath and the rest. But concerning Christ I cannot say whether
they too, weighed down by the wickedness of the aforementioned
disciples (irepi) of Cerinthus and Merinthus, deem (him) mere
man; or, as the truth is, firmly hold him to have been generated
through the Holy Spirit from Mary. And this the heresy of the
Nazdraioi is in Bercea, about Code-Syria, and in Decapolis, about
the regions of Pella, and in Basinitis that is called Kokabe but
in Hebrew Chochabe. For thence the beginning arose, after the

40 THE MONIST.

migration from Jerusalem of all the disciples that settled in Pella,
Christ having told them to abandon Jerusalem and to depart, since
it was going to suffer a siege. And on such a basis having settled in
Peraea, there, as I said, they passed the time. Thence the heresy
of the Nazoraioi had its origin."

With the next section, an argument about circumcision, we
have no concern. Epiphanius then continues: "Altogether hateful
are these to the Jews. For not only do the children of the Jews
cherish hatred towards these, but on arising at dawn,8 and at mid-
day, and at eventide, thrice a day, when they perform devotions in
their synagogues, they curse them and anathematise saying that
'Accurse doth God the Nazoraioi.' For against these they lay it
up more especially that being themselves of the Jews they preach
Jesus to be Christ, which is counter to those that are still Jews, that
have not received Christ. And they have the Gospel according to
Matthew most complete in Hebrew. For among them undoubtedly
this, just as from the beginning it was written in Hebrew letters,
is preserved. But I know not whether the genealogies, those from
Abraham to Christ, they took away. Well, having detected this
(heresy) as a dull and, on account of the poison, pain-producing
cell of wasps, and having crushed it down with the words of truth,
let us go on to the next, my dearest ones, asking from God His
help."

Here follows the chapter Kara E/?twva«i>v.

We have reproduced So much of Epiphanius in a translation
so slavishly literal, because his writings are not very accessible, and
to show as clearly as possible his style of thought and expression,
as well as to avoid taking any liberties of interpretation. The whole
passage is one of exceeding importance. With its glaring contra-
dictions, due perhaps in large measure to interpolation, we have
nothing to do, except as noted below. The great central fact is this :
Epiphanius testifies unequivocally that the ,Nasaraioi were "before
Christ" and "knew not Christ." On this point it is impossible that
he should be mistaken. For he was unquestionably learned, and

8 We read here ea&tv for

MEANING OF THE EPITHET NAZOREAN. 4!

laborious, and inquisitive, however shortsighted, fanatical, and in-
tolerant. Hilgenfeld bears repeated witness to his "richer knowl-
edge," "exacter knowledge," independent research, and the like.
That he should have invented these pre-Christian Nasaraioi is quite
incredible. For they were evidently a most painful and venomous
thorn in his flesh. Their existence was a vexatious mystery, which
he toils desperately and pitiably to explain. How wearisomely he
reiterates that the name was taken from Nazaret, as if reiteration
might finally make it so! He mentions these sectarians merely
because he must, he cudgels his brains cruelly to make out what
they can mean, he involves himself in hopeless contradictions in
trying to solve the riddle, and at last he cuts the Gordian knot by
dating them from the siege of Jerusalem (A. D. 68), though they
were pre-Christian, and Paul was one of them nearly twenty years
before! It is clear as noon from the painstaking, the repetitions,
the discrepancies, and especially from the closing sentence, that the
task was not a grateful one to Epiphanius, and that he would gladly
have forgone it if he could.

The dumbness of other heresiologists (except Philaster, who
also mentions the Jewish sect of the Nazareans) now becomes more
expressive than their speech. It was just because they had wit
enough to perceive the danger of discussing these Nasaraioi, that
they maintained a prudent but ominous silence, broken only by
harmless allusions to their heretical doctrines. But the valor of

B»

Epiphanius got the better of his discretion. In the providence of
God the foolishness of the Bishop has availed far more for the truth
than the wisdom of his predecessors and contemporaries, and even
of his successors in modern times. These latter give this original
and universal designation of the Christians but the scantiest recog-
nition. A careful search through all accessible authorities discovers
hardly anything that is pertinent and worth quoting. Petavius con-
tents himself with a few notes and skeptical phrases, none of which
throw light on the subject. Hilgenfeld names the Nasaraer and
Nasarder repeatedly in his standard Ketsergeschichte, regarding
them apparently as the "remnant of the primitive Jewish-Christian
congregation," but the important question he does not mention. In

42 THE MONIST.

his Die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche (Dutch translation
[1868], p. 148 ff.) Ritschl discusses "the Nazaraer and the Phara-
saic Ebionites," regarding the former as the original apostolic Chris-
tians, but neither he nor Tubingen, old or new, approaches the heart
of the matter, the pre-Christian existence of the "heresy."

We have no space to treat the vexed question of the Ebionites
and the Essenes, but we must press the query as to the Nasaraioi,
for there is the pivot of controversy. We note that our author
cautiously shuts up and locks the natural door of escape, by dis-
tinguishing his sectaries expressly from the Naziraioi, or sanctified,
with whom Petavius would identify them.9 We observe further that
he says of those who were "before Christ," they "called themselves
Nasaraioi." This is important. For such is the exact translitera-
tion of the older form preserved in the Syriac (both Peshito and
Sinaitic), Najarya. Here then our expectations are met precisely.
For the natural and almost, though not quite, uniform translitera-
tion oi % is <r and not £. Again, the name of the pure Jewish sect is
given always as Na£apatoi, never as Na£o>paioi. Here then is a notable

gradation: Nao-apeuot, Na£a/o<uoi, Na£<opaioi, finally Na£api;voi. Only
the first conforms strictly to the Syriac prototype, Nagarya. We
venture to suspect that the change was not quite accidental, that
there was intention to lead away the term from the original tell-
tale form. Be this as it may, it seems indisputable that the sect of
the Nasaraioi existed "before Christ."

Possibly, however, some one may plead that the name Nasa-
raioi (or at least Nazoraioi) was not assumed till after Christ. Epi-
phanius seems to hint as much, though not affirming it expressly.
He says that the Jessaioi, to him evident Nazoraioi, having merely
heard the name of Jesus and witnessed the apostolic wonders, be-
lieved on Jesus and applied to themselves the name Nazoraioi,
knowing him as of Nazaret. Perhaps no one would take this se-
riously or expect us to waste words in exposing such an absurdity.

' In Josephus we find two allusions to Nazirites : Ant. IV. 4, 4, and XIX.
6, I. In the one the form is Na&pa'usv, in the other it is NafapaZot. But this
latter is found in a parenthesis that needs no critic's eye to detect it as the
explanatory insertion of a later hand

MEANING OF THE EPITHET NAZOREAN. 43

That these sectarians, scattered over a wide region, were at once
converted and changed their name in any such manner is absolutely
unbelievable and preposterous. Besides, it offers no explanation of
the fact that the Nazaraioi were a Jewish sect, already treated as
such by Epiphanius himself (see supra}, and under the name Na-
saraioi certainly pre-Christian. We do not of course deny that
Nazoraioi may be a later Christian modification of the earlier name.
Amid all the nebulosity then of this testimony, one fact shines out
clear and unmistakable, the pre-Christian name and existence of
a sect that gave the common designation to the earliest Christians,
a name that Paul himself did not repudiate, and that still denotes
them in the land of their origin.

Surely, no one will contend that these trans- Jordanic sectaries
derive their name from the unknown "city called Nazareth," in
Zebulun. They are never in any way associated with Nazareth. It
is equally clear, as already shown, that they were "not Nazirites,"
the sanctified. Whatever they were, their early existence explodes
the etymology of Nazarean as inhabitant of Nazareth.

None the less the question recurs, Whence their name? The
only answer we can imagine is the one already given, which derives
the epithet from the Root N-$-R (preserve), but leaves the exact
force of the termination undetermined. For the Epiphanian deri-
vation of Jessaioi from Jesse perhaps none will contend ; far more
likely the Epiphanian alternative, which relates it to Jesus. The
two Hebrew words T^ and w would yield the Greek Ico-o-atoi with
almost equal readiness. For the double <r we may remember Meoxrias
(J. i. 42, iv. 25) for dorPEtt. However, this and kindred topics we
do not broach at present but hold in reserve. It cannot escape ob-
servation that the notions of Saviour (Jesus) and Preserver are
very close kin, so that the antecedent probability seems very high
that the Jessaioi and the Nasaraioi were nearly identical, — the terms
Jesus and Najaraios seem almost equivalent.

It must be added that what we know of the Gospel of the Naza-
reans, from the fragments edited by Hilgenfeld, is consistent with
the notion that they worshipped originally not a man but an aspect
or person of the Godhead. The account of the conception and birth

44 THE MONIST.

is wanting, and, what is most important, the Holy Spirit is made
the mother of Jesus — in perfect accordance with Hebre-w modes of
thought, or at least forms of speech, for on is feminine, only rarely
masculine: "Just now my mother the Holy Spirit took me by one
of my hairs10 and bore me up to the great mountain Tabor," quoted
twice by Origen (in loan. Tom, II. 6, in Jerem. XV. 4) and twice
by Jerome (in Mich. VII. 6, in Is. XL. 12). Hereby the human
birth and nature appear to be positively excluded. Similarly the
nearly related Ebionaioi, at least some of them, declared "the Christ
to be Adam, the first fashioned and inspired by the inbreathing of
God; but others among them declare him sprung from above, a
spirit created before all, both above angels and lording over all, and
called Christ, who by lot held the ^Eon yonder. And that he comes
hither when he will, as also he came in Adam, and appeared to the
patriarchs, clothed with the body ; and having come to Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob, the same came in the last days, and put on the same
body of Adam, and appeared man, and was crucified, and rose up,
and ascended. And again, when they will, they say, No! but into
him came the Spirit, which is the Christ, and put on him that is
called the Jesus." (Ep. XXX. 3.)

There is much more like the preceding, but so much is enough
to show that these very earliest and even pre-Christian sectaries
thought of the Christ and the Jesus as supernal and superhuman
beings, as deities or phases of deity. These also used apparently
the same "Gospel according to Hebrews," written in "Hebrew" and
more or less resembling our Matthew, but without the first chapters.
Epiphanius has further information that they have also the Johan-
nine Gospel, and even Acts, "translated into Hebrew" and preserved
in the treasure-houses at Tiberias — more likely that they had parts
of these scriptures in Aramaean originals. Harnack himself de-
clares (DG 4I. 293), "these gnostic Ebionites have preserved very
archaic matter."

10 The idea may seem grotesque to us, but not to the Oriental. Compare
Ez. viii. 3, the fire-form "took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted

me up "; Bel and the Dragon, v. 36; other transports by the spirit are

most probably to be conceived as effected similarly: Ac. viii. 39, Herm. Vis.
I. i, 3, II. I, 1-4, Asc. Is. vi. 14, I K. xviii. 12, 2 K. ii. 16.

MEANING OF THE EPITHET NAZOREAN. 45

Look at it then under what angle we will, there is one momen-
tous fact that confronts us:

The name Nasarean antedates our era and attaches itself both in
form and meaning to the Old-Semitic stem Na3aR (preserve).

WILLIAM BENJAMIN SMITH.
TULANE UNIVERSITY, 25th Octobor, 1904.

ADDENDUM.

Further examination of the great Paris Zauber papyrus, as
edited by C. Wessely, discovers the epithet in question embedded
in a mass of glossolalian galimatias, at line 1548:

"opKi£<a <rc Kara TOV

va<raa

That vcuraapi is our Na<ra/>ia hardly admits of reasonable doubt
in the mind of a student of this extraordinary document.

Wessely dates the manuscript, along with Parthey's first Berlin
Papyrus, from nearer 300 than 400 A. D. But he recognises, of
course, that "the text of our papyrus is not original." All the phe-
nomena, both of matter and of form, point to ein hoheres Alter,
where the adjective will bear an acute accent. Some of the text
is avowedly transcribed from "the very old papyrus," the abundant
scribal errors imply "a rather long written tradition," and the gen-
eral atmosphere is one of antiquity.

That the glossolalian passages stand closely related to the
"Tongue-talking" of New Testament times, is a proposition that
we hope to establish in another connection. W. B. S.

TULANE UNIVERSITY, 22d December, 1904.

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM.

ATOMISM AND THE ETHER.

T7ROM the earliest historic times, thoughtful minds have ad-
dressed themselves to the problem of the composition and the
ultimate nature of the external world. When the phenomena of
experience have been thought as inhering in substance and the at-
tributes by which substance is known are projected outward as ob-
jective, not only to myself, but also to absolute subjectivity, that is,
when the objective phenomena are regarded as having an inde-
pendent external existence, the next step is their unification into
an objective world. This dualism between an absolute subject and
a universal object is one that pervades all thinking, simply because
it is the first product of thinking.

Practically, we know the external world as a succession of
phenomena appearing as different modes in extension. These three
categories of our knowledge, time, space, and mode, are necessary
forms of our thought. The process of cognition is a process of
integration, the final extreme of which is the production of an ex-
ternal unity to correspond with the internal unity of self.

As certain phenomena are affirmed as attributes of a substance,
all attributes are integrated as a totality of substance in a unity,
which is our world of experience. This we philosophically construe
as the universe. Just as the few and disconnected points of irri-
tation in the retina are blended into a field of view without breaks
or lacunae, when reflected on the consciousness, so the paltry, scat-
tered reactions upon the sensorium commune that make up our
individual experience are reported in our thinking as a continuous

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 47

extended world. There are no breaks in it. Nature, our nature,
abhors a vacuum.

This thought of an external continuum may be derived from
a peculiar and very "fortunate" limitation of our knowledge. There
is, e. g., no mechanism for perceiving an hiatus in inner experience.
Temporal relations are all dynamic. Rip Van Winkle might extend
his sleep twice ten thousand times its reported length, but, on
awakening, he could know nothing from inner testimony. Inner
experience is, and must be, a continuum. Outer experience is re-
ported in the same terms.

Again, space is constructed out of temporal (successive) ele-
ments by psychical geometry. The angular deviation of eyes, re-
corded as muscular sensations of accomodation and similar move-
ments correlated with successive experiences related to these
sensations, are connected with the formation of space conceptions,
whatever the intuitional school may postulate as something prior
to this creation. Space becomes a continuum ; therefore, it is a
geometric and not an arithmetical construction.

In the case of mode, the idea of a continuum is later in arising,
for black is contrasted to white as distinct from, or even opposite
to, the latter; and it is only later that we arrive at the apparently
paradoxical result that all white is more or less black, and black is
somewhat white, and that intervening colors express in their own
way a sliding scale of intervening values.

This last analogy is misleading, for it is in the series of ex-
citations and not in the sensations that we find a continuum. The
two fundamental forms of mode are identity and unlikeness or
dissimilarity. Mode is our reaction to the filling of our forms of
space and time, — the latter directly, the former as reflected in ob-
jectivisation.

In the long run, therefore, all of these necessary categories of
our thinking help us to form an external unity or world, after which
metaphysics postulates it as a universe or sets upon it the seal of the
absolute.

Science sets forth with the utmost confidence to make conquest
of this external world, but only, so far, to return to the stronghold

48 THE MONIST.

of individualistic experience, humiliated and baffled. We do not
know, and can make no adequate expression for, the reality which
constitutes this world of ours. Three characteristics are, indeed,
given by the necessities of constructive thinking: the world is uni-
tary, it is continuous, it is dynamic.

All attempts to evaluate the world of experience may be said to
fall in one or other of three classes, as follows :

1. Atomism. Some minds are arithmetical. All quanitative
relations are thought as numerical. All wholes are conceived as
made up of units. A world must for them be the sum of all the
units of experience, and these must correspond to external units.
Such units, since we detect in them relations of "more and less,"
must be divisible into smaller units; but there will be no point at
which they will disappear, but there must be a lower limit of divisi-
bility. By such reasoning, we arrive at indivisible units or atoms,
in which inhere all the properties or attributes of the world as a
whole, or of various things in particular.

2. Plenism. Other minds are geometric and conceive of quan-
tity as continuous. Units are artificial measures of quantities, which
increase or decrease by infinitessimal amounts, that is, by contin-
uous activity. The qualities or attributes of the world or of things
in particular are only explicable as inhering in a universal substance,
co-extensive with the universe and capable of manifold forms of
expression.

This interpretation finds many fatal defects in atomism and
points out that atoms acting across empty spaces violate the neces-
sities they were invented to satisfy. If acting requires to inhere in
a substance, what becomes - of activity when passing through a
vacuum from one atom to another? In vain, atomism borrows
ether from the plenists to fill the chinks between the atoms. The
geometrical school states that a plenum or universal substance fills
all space and that activity resides in it and is propagated through
it. It is even possible to invent mathematical expressions for the
individualised manifestations of the activity in the plenum, such as
may be studied in the discussion of the vortex atom.

3. Energism or Spontaneity. The two schools already named

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 49

have shared the honors and divided the field of physics between
them. No other possibility has been recognised till lately by modern
physicists. These two schools have in common a philosophical
postulate, which is not supposed to require proof — and this is very
fortunate indeed, for it could never secure it. This postulate is that
all activities or attributes must reside in something which is not
active. This matter is the physical substitute for the philosophical
or psychological construct, "substance." It is by nature unknow-
able, for it could only be known by its properties or activities. But
we do not know them as properties of it, but create it to explain the
continuance or reappearance or relations of the activities.1

Activities are discovered to occur in my mind in certain rela-
tions, and these relations are the basis for a postulate called "mat-
ter." So fixed is the idea that attributes inhere in something, of
which they are attributes that language almost refuses to describe
any other possibility. But the energist or advocate of spontaneity
demurs to this conception as irrelevant. Why should we postulate
the unknown to explain the known? True, "standing in relation"
is the most important thing about activities. Activities cohere in
relations of sequence and similarity, but why invent a matter, en-
tirely unlike the activity and unthinkable apart from the activity,
as its ground ?

The efforts of physicists have so far failed to afford a con-
sistent and rational explanation of, or expression for, either atom
or plenum. The nearest approach to such expression, mathematic-
ally, is inconsistent with either and would apply better to activity
freed from the limitation of plurality and discreetness imposed by
atomism, on one hand, and the impossible combination of imponder-
ability and elasticity, on the other. When the plenists ask us to con-
ceive of gravitation as the effect of an ether itself imponderable, we
are fain to seek the camp of the atomists, who speak of ponderable
points acting on ponderable points through imponderable space — •
or to abandon both.

1 Lord Kelvin defines matter as the rotating parts of an inert perfect fluid,
which fills all space, but which is, when not rotating, absolutely unperceived
by our senses.

5O THE MONIST.

The energists claim that there is no need for either conception,
but that substantiality is expressed by relation among activities.
Activities are positive realities whenever they are shown to belong
together. The belonging-together is the substantiality sought, and
to seek further is illogical. A relation is a real thing and expresses
a law of organisation. The organisation is the organism. We talk
about cold iron and hot iron, because, of the group of properties we
connote under the word "iron," certain ones are observed to vary,
and others are, relative to our means of observation, constant.
Strictly, however, we should say hot-iron, cold-iron, and cold-hard-
black-smooth-iron and hot-softer-grey-rough-iron, etc., as our knowl-
edge of the variables grows. What, after all, makes "iron" a species
by itself as against other aggregates of properties called copper, etc.,
is an organic coherence or belonging-together.

To the spontaneity school have usually belonged philosophical
minds who have refused or been unable to attempt an application
in detail of their system to the practical needs of human science.
Even the practical men who recognised the philosophical correctness
of this standpoint, were constrained in praxis to use the language
of practical physics and chemistry. Hegel's ideas and Schopen-
hauer's World as Will and Idea have never found a place among
the symbols of the chemist or the formulae of the physicist.

After the few introductory words, we may take up the teach-
ings of the three schools more in detail.

THE ATOMIC HYPOTHESIS.

The most complete account of the opinions of the ancient
atomists is to be found in the works of the Roman poet Lucretius.
Democritus was the founder of the atomic theory as we know it,
though it is probable that the two ideas of nature as a plenum and
of an infinity of indivisible parts had existed in the philosophical
systems of Egypt and India at a much earlier date. Whether we
regard the atomic theory as a result of an arithmetical way of treat-
ing quantity, or as a product of experience in which the divisibility
of units into still smaller units is experimentally realised, it has
nevertheless appealed to a certain class of minds with irresistible

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 51

power in all ages. The atomists made the distinction between matter
and space, and regarded the atoms as indivisible particles of matter
scattered in space. The physical analogy is a mass of sand, in which
the particles may be all alike, at least in some respects. The neces-
sity for voids was a supposed result of the necessity for motion.

"Quapropter locus est intactus, inane, vacansque
Quod si non esset, nulla ratione moveri
Res possent; namque, officinum quod corporis extat,
Officere atque obstare, id in omni tempore adesset
Omnibus : haud igitur quicquam procedere posset,
Precipium credendi nulla daret res."

De Rerutn Natura, 335.

The atoms of Heraclitus are indivisible units differing in size,
form, and weight. All changes in nature reduce to changes in
place or aggregation of atoms. The atoms group themselves in
various complexes more or less analogous with the modern mole-
cule, the differences in which result from the diversities in the ar-
rangement of the inherent atoms. Aside from atoms, there is only
empty space, but this space has an objective existence, although
called the non-existent as contrasted to the atoms as the existent.
Democritus himself says that the existent is no more real than the
non-existent, a statement which reminds us of the famous Hegelian
aphorism that being and non-being are the same. Perhaps, it is to
be explained that the agent and the sphere for the activities of the
agent are two equal necessities of thought, or that one cannot think
of phenomena apart from the limitations that define and make pos-
sible the recognition of these phenomena.

The atoms were supposed to be in continuous motion among
themselves and to group themselves temporarily in accordance with
uniformities or harmonies in such motions. But, as the activities
of atoms are, after all, unexplained, a principle is postulated which
has generally been termed necessity, avay^n- This is more like what
we have called "ground" and may represent an implied organism —
a view that may, perhaps, seem supported by the atheistic tendencies
of the atomists.

52 THE MONIST.

Anaxagoras supplied the corrective by substituting for necessity
the voOs or Nous, the conscious activity, a teleological principle. This
gives to the atom the attribute of spontaneity and forms a link with
the energic school. For Anaxagoras the atoms were innumerable,
simple, inert bodies in chaotic distribution, until set in activity by
the Nous, which, accordingly, arranges them into an orderly uni-
verse or organism.

In many respects, the monadology of Leibnitz resembles atom-
ism. In making the idea of substance the foundation of his philos-
ophy, Leibnitz resembled Spinoza, but Leibnitz was arithmetical,
while his predecessor was geometrical. The substance of Leibnitz,
while a living activity, activity being the very nature of substance,
finds individual expression in a multiplicity of active monads, each
different from the other and each an indivisible point. In this re-
spect they are like Boskovitch's atoms, but, in reply to the objection
that no number of unexpected points would make an extended uni-
verse, Leibnitz replies that space has no objective reality, it is only
a vague subjective concept.

The monad is not only active, it is also living. Each monad is
a microcosm and mirrors the universe. It is fundamental to Leib-
nitz's system that the activities of every monad imply those of all
others. These activities, as related to individual monads, are re-
pulsions, but they unitedly form an equilibriated whole. All things
are compounds if monads. Matter in the usual sense does not exist.
Each monad has a certain mentality in attribute and a certain vague
or clear consciousness. The equilibrium of all these conscious activ-
ities is the perfect divine reason. While monads do not affect each
other directly, they move in a state of equilibrium in which one is
reflected in all and all in one, — the pre-established harmony.

Boskovitch, like Leibnitz, regarded atoms as mere centres of
force, the result of whose coexistence is that no two atomic centres
can approach each other within a certain distance. This approaches
to energism, but Boskovitch's atoms have position in space, are
capable of motion, in a continuous path, and possess a certain mass,
so that a certain amount of force is required to produce a change of
motion. The atom is endowed with a potential force, and two atoms

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 53

will repel or attract each other, with a force depending on their dis-
tance apart, and, for distances greater than about one-thousandth of
an inch, this attraction varies inversely as the square of the distance,
while the law of repulsive force is not known. The ultimate force
is repulsion which increases without limit, as the distance increases
without limit, so that no two atoms can ever coincide. All action
between bodies is action at a distance. No such thing as contact
between bodies occurs in nature.

Swedenborg seems not only to have adopted an atomic hypoth-
esis, but to have anticipated modern stereo-chemistry, by suggesting
various geometrical groupings of atoms as causes of the peculiar-
ities of the resulting mofecules.

When Boyle and Lavoisier had developed the idea of elements
and elementary discreteness, the idea of the atomists, which had
been revived by Gassendi, was seized upon by Newton to serve in
his physical speculations. The establishment of the fact that for any
given portion of matter extension is variable but mass is constant,
made the adoption of some form of atomism inevitable.

Bryan and William Higgins developed the atomic hypothesis
along theoretical lines. The former, in 1775, recognised seven ele-
ments composed of "atoms homogeneal, impenetrable, immutable,
in figure inconvertible, and globular." William, a little later, pro-
mulgated the idea of the union of atoms to form molecules, though
he was unable to formulate the quantitative law for their union.

To Dalton, more than to any single writer, perhaps, we owe
the formulation, in acceptable form and with convincing data, of the
atomic hypothesis in its modern dress. Dalton was undoubtedly
greatly influenced by Newton's corpuscular emanation theory, and
his opportunity was due to the work of many others, through whose
labors the constancy of matter had been postulated, elements had
been differentiated, and the beginnings of pneumatic chemistry
made. When studying the diffusion of gases he was impressed
with the idea that atoms of different substances must be different
in size. Upon applying this hypothesis in chemical problems, he
discovered that for each element there is a definite combining value,
i. e., that a relative weight of its atom could be assigned. It was

54 THE MONIST.

known prior to this time that substances unite in definite proportions.
The law of definite proportions found its explanation in the impossi-
bility of dividing atoms, so that the resulting weights of a compound
must contain the weights of the uniting atoms as factors.

The atomic theory, as formulated anew by Dalton, which por-
trayed chemical union as a juxtaposition of atoms, co-ordinated
the known relations and gave to chemistry a quantitative basis or
law. The tables of Richter and Fischer supplied materials, and the
new formulae of Berzelius assisted to make the new system prac-
ticable. Dalton's tables of equivalents were rough approximations,
and his own success as an experimenter was limited, but he opened
the way and devised the method which, in1 the hands of Berzelius,
who supplied what Dalton lacked, became fruitful, and the new no-
tation grew more complete and was soon generally accepted.

Physicists were, naturally, quite as much interested in the con-
structions growing out of the atomic hypothesis as chemists, though
both were for a while profoundly influenced by the metaphysics of
their time. When Gay-Lussac, in 1808, the same year as the publi-
cation of Dalton's System, showed that combination between gases
always took place in simple relations by volume, and that all gaseous
densities were proportional either to the combining weights of the
several substances or to rational multiples of them, the new era, the
era of gaseous physics, had opened. Avagadro generalised the facts
and formulated the law that bears his name: "Equal volumes of
gases, under like conditions of temperature and pressure, contain
an equal number of molecules." The distinction between atoms and
molecules (the smallest aggregate of atoms in combination) re-
quires to be constantly in mind, or the mistakes of the earlier chem-
ists and some later physicists may be repeated.

To the above must be added the following: Boyles Law: "In a
given mass of any gas kept at a constant temperature, the pressure
per unit of area upon the containing surface increases in the same
proportion as the volume occupied by the gas is diminished."
Charles's Law. "If the density be constant, the pressure is directly
proportional to the temperature measured from the absolute zero.
— 273 centigrade." Dalton's Law. "In a mixture of gases, when

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 55

there is an equilibrium, each gas behaves as a vacuum to all the rest."

It was at one time believed that these phenomena could be ex-
plained by recourse to mutually repulsive forces acting between the
parts of which the gas is composed (molecules and the like) ; but
experimental proof has been offered that not repulsion but attrac-
tion exists between molecules. Regnault, for example, by observing
deviations from Boyle's law when the density of gases is greatly in-
creased, showed that the pressure is less than that law requires,
indicating that the interfering force is attractive. Joule and
Thompson conducted experiments on the thermal variations during
expansion of gases which also showed that the forces between mole-
cules, though small, were actively attractive.

Such considerations led to the kinetic theory of gases, which
explains the intrinsic energy of a gas as not residing in the potential
energy of intramolecular forces, but mainly in the kinetic energy of
the molecules themselves, which are assumed to be in a state of
continual relative velocity. The physical theory of heat compels us
to regard the intrinsic energy of any gaseous mass as dependent
largely upon temperature, so that it follows that, if this intrinsic
energy is found in the form of kinetic energy of the moving mole-
cules, the average kinetic energy of the molecules throughout the
mass must be a function of the temperature. When several kinds
of molecules are in motion and acting on one another, the mean
kinetic energy of a molecule is the same whatever its mass, the
molecules of greater mass having smaller mean velocities.

If equal volumes of two gases are at equal pressure, the kinetic
energy is the same in each. If they are also at equal temperature
the mean kinetic energy of each molecule is the same in each. If,
therefore, equal volumes of two gases are at equal temperature and
pressures, the number of molecules in each is the same, and, there-
fore, the masses of the two kinds of molecules are in the same ratio
as the density of the gases to which they belong.

It is not necessary to go into the processes by which the size
and velocity, as well as the mean path, of the molecule have been
calculated. The mean path of a molecule of hydrogen is given at
one io,oooth of a millimetre. About two millions of molecules of

56 THE MONIST.

hydrogen would form a row a millimetre long. Since the molecules
of organised matter are very complex and so much larger than
molecules of hydrogen, it has been computed that about two million
molecules of organic matter might constitute a fragment visible
under a microscope. If these conceptions were true, they would have
an important bearing on those theories of heredity that require for
their application the existence of pangens, micellae, ids, or the like.
The size of the resulting germs would, upon the above calculations,
soon become quite unmanageable and impossible. Of course, we
shall see later that, even on the atomic hypothesis, we may be
dealing with ultimate particles (electrons) a thousandth the size of
the atom, so that the "ids" et id genus omne again find a realm for
their imagined operations.2

When we assume that atoms of every pure (unmixed) sub-
stance are all alike among themselves, then Dalton's law of multi-
ple proportions follows of necessity, and all relations of mass in
chemical compounds must be regulated by the masses of several
atoms. There exists, then, for each element a definite number,
which expresses the quantity of that element that may enter into
compounds. These numbers for the various elements are relative,
or are really ratios. These numbers are the combining weights, or
more properly, the combining masses of the elements, and are
commonly but incorrectly called the atomic weights.

While, nominally, these atomic weights express the ratio of the
combining weight to that of hydrogen, assumed as unity, for prac-
tical reasons the assumption is made that oxygen has a weight of
16 as compared to hydrogen, and the comparisons are made direct
with oxygen and reduced to a theoretical unity on that basis. As a
matter of fact, if O is 16, H is about 1.003 or T-°O5-

A very important corollary of the atomic hypothesis was that
suggested by Prout in 1815 and elaborated by Meinecke in 1817.
Prout believed that there is a fundamental substance or protyle out
of which the various atoms are formed by union in various propor-
tions, etc. Hydrogen he at first supposed to be, or to contain, the

2 An interesting discussion of methods for determining the size of mole-
cules is given in Risteen's Molecules and Molecular Theories.

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 57

protyle, and, as a consequence, it was assumed that the atomic
weights of all elements must be multiples of that of hydrogen or
some aliquot part of it, i. e., of the protyle composing it. Thomas
Thompson disseminated this idea in England, but, in fact, it is a
suggestion which will occur of itself to every thoughtful student
of chemical quantities.

Dumas and Stas found errors in the work of Berzelius and
showed that the ratio of carbon and hydrogen is as 12 : I and that
of nitrogen to hydrogen as 14 : i. This seemed a long step toward
experimental proof of the protyle theory. The result of the most
careful quantitative work so far does not support the supposition,
and Dumas was obliged to divide the weight of hydrogen by 4 in
order to secure the desired factor, and this is so small a number as
to be quite within the range of experimental error in determining
the atomic weights by present methods. It will be seen later that
recent results seem to indicate that the factor may be hydrogen
divided by icoo, not by 4, so that this difficulty is not so serious as
was supposed, provided we accept the electron as the modern repre-
sentative of the protyle.

However, there is a real approximation to such a relation as
Dumas supposed. Out of 67 elements whose atomic weights are
fairly well known, 38 are whole numbers or different from a whole
number by no more than one tenth. It will be noticed that quite re-
cently the doctrine of the protyle is rendered probable in another
form. The so-called electrons, which are supposed to be vastly
smaller than atoms, are found, by the best evidence yet available,
to have the same mass, whether derived from the atom of one
substance or that of another with a different weight. Moreover,
there seems to be reason to suppose that atoms or molecules may
become so complex that the internal strains cause them to be un-
stable, as in the case of radium, and that these protyles are given off
incessantly without appreciably reducing the mass. If this spon-
taneous decomposition be assumed and the materials given off are
manifoldly smaller than hydrogen atoms, then no experimental
verification of the proportional relations of the protyle to the atom

58 THE MONIST.

could be expected in the usual channels, and the objections to the
hypothesis in the new form disappear.

Another set of corespondences has given rise to what is known
as the periodic law. J. B. Richter, as early as 1798, made some sug-
gestions in this line, and soon after the atomic hypothesis was formu-
lated, Doebereimer called attention to a certain regularity in the
series of combining weights. Pettenkofer tried to arrange the
atomic weights of similar elements in arithmetical series, Lenson
hoped to group all weights in triads, and, later, Newlands announced
the law of octaves and enjoyed the ridicule that usually attends the
premature recognition of a new fact. Finally, Lothar Meyer and
Mendel jeff contemporaneously (1869) announced that properties of
elements are periodic functions of their atomic weights. In this
way, curious analogies in mathematical proportions were brought
into relation with similarities in the properties of elements. A very
remarkable regularity occurs with respect to the valency of the
elements. An indication that the discovered correspondencies have
some counterpart in nature is found in the fact that Mendeljeff was
able to predict in advance the characters of elements to fill the va-
cant places in the series; and these predictions were verified to a
considerable extent on the discovery of the corresponding substances.

Difficulties in applying the law of Gay-Lussac to compound
gases like HC1 led eventually to the recognition of the theory that
atoms in a gas join to form groups called molecules. Gay-Lussac's
law, therefore, runs: "The specific gravities of gases stand to each
other in the ratio of their molecular weights."

The molecules in a gas are supposed to be moving in all direc-
tions with veiy different velocities and are continually encountering
each other. The molecules will encounter each other less frequently
the farther apart they are, and all the more frequently the larger
their cross-section. The mean free path is directly proportional to
the space alloted to each molecule. J. R. Mayer, in 1842, deduced
from apparent loss of heat during expansion of a gas and the fact
that this expansion in a vacuum does not occasion such loss, the
idea that the heat is converted into energy. When the gas is com-

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 59

pressed, the work done is transformed into heat. This led to the
doctrine of the conservation of energy.

As already briefly alluded to, considerations connected with
specific heat and the kinetic theory of gases seem to show that there
is intra-molecular energy, which may be conceived as expended in
vector, i.e., rotational motions.

A remarkable character of molecules was laboriously evolved
from apparent discrepancies in the results of chemical analyses,
which seemed to point to different properties of bodies with the
same composition. Franklin, in 1852, discovered that one atom of
zinc, arsenic, etc., had its combining tendency satisfied by a definite
number of univalent elements or radicals of whatever kind they
might be. An atom of carbon, for example, can unite with four
other univalent atoms or radicals.

With the law of valence a new vista opened before the molecular
student. The valences were also found to form a series correspond-
ing to the periodic law. It will be seen that, putting aside the as-
sumption of materiality as a mysterious conveyor of properties or
activities, the atomic hypothesis has been the means of revealing a
large series of quantitative ratios or correspondences, the value of
which to science is something wholly apart from the significance of
the material atoms in which these correspondences are supposed to
reside. They are all correspondences in force, or, better, in form
or amount of energy.

The fact that there were exceptions to the application of the
general law of valency, led to a search for variations in the form
of the atom to explain the variation. Van't HofF, in 1878, advanced
such a theory. He assumed that the chemical attraction between
molecules is due to gravitation, and that, if the form of the atom
were other than spherical, the intensity of attraction at the surface
would have a certain number of maxima dependent on the form.
If the thermal motion of the atom were rapid, only the strongest
maxima would be able to retain their atoms, and valency would be
greater at a low than at a high temperature, and this is the case.

Van't Hoff extended his theory by formulating a tridimensional
space relation for atoms. He supposes the valencies of the carbon

6O THE MONIST.

atom, e. g., to act at the four summits of a tetrahedron. Wislecenus
has shown that this theory gives an intelligible explanation of the
existence of more isomers among nnsaturated compounds than indi-
cated by the ordinary structural formulae.

Although this theory is of the most hypothetical kind, it has
been extended to form the foundation of a complicated stereo-
chemistry, the applications of which have also a bearing on crys-
tallography.

We know of no matter without energy, or rather, we postulate
matter only from the energy perceived. Energy is denned as of
such a nature that it is not possible for any masses affected with
any kind of energy to exist together. ( It will be noted here that the
fact that there are "masses" affected by "energy" is assumed with-
out any shadow of proof.)

Mass is used as though it somehow represented "amount of
matter," but, in reality, it is expressed in units of a force, and reasons
may be given for using energy instead of mass. It is generally

agreed to represent kinetic energy by the formula vL, when m equals

m2
mass and v equals velocity of the moving body. Potential energy

will then be represented by fs, where f equals force or measure of
striving to change place, and s the space passed over by the point
considered in the change of state. The general law that in energy
the intensity must have the same value in all parts of the system is
interpreted to mean that

For kinetic energy velocity equals intensity,
" potential energy force equals intensity,
" heat energy temperature equals intensity,
" electrical energy electromotive force equals intensity;

and that, whenever the intensity varies in different parts of the
system, the latter is in a state of unrest until equilibrium is restored.
In all these expressions one factor is quantity and the other is in-
tensity; in electrodynamics, for example, the conception is that the
quantity of electricity is the real thing at the bottom of electrical
phenomena, and the second or electromagnetic force or tension is
an intensity. (Whatever value this analysis may have in providing

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 6l

an expressive terminology, it must be remembered that the real thing
is the electrical energy, and that the separation into two factors is as
illusory as the dualism between matter and its properties.)

Clausius was led to conclude that some molecules in electrolytes
are decomposed in consequence of their collision, and that these
parts, being separated, are available to effect the transport of elec-
tricity generated.3 And it was later decided that solutions of salts
and strong acids and bases contain these substances largely dis-
associated as ions. This theory of electrolytic disassociation has
proven quite fruitful.

Up to the time of Boyle, the conception of a chemical element
was not that of a substance, but of a property or a plexus of prop-
erties, so that the presence of an element in a substance was recog-
nised through the possession by that substance of a certain property,
and it may well be that little has been gained philosophically by the
new idea that elements are undecomposed residues of natural sub-
stances.

From the chemical side, the atomic hypothesis seemed well
justified. It became a vast and complicated structure, coherent and
serving to join in an intelligible system the wonderfully varied mass
of facts accumulated by thousands of workers in this field. The
brief summary given will serve to indicate the diversity of the
problems and the methods of solution. Like gravitation the theory
was "proven" and adopted in all the practical work of chemistry
and was taught in all schools as an established dogma, and yet,
like the theory of gravitation, it is undoubtedly false in its present
form. It is a common charge against science that it is lacking in
stability and that the accepted theory of yesterday is discredited to-
day. The criticism indicates an entire misconception of scientific

* By Clausius's formula, the free path of molecules has been calculated as,
for example, that of oxygen at .0000038 in., of nitrogen at .0000036 in., of
hydrogen at .0000067 m- From data so secured, the average number of col-
lisions per second experienced by molecules of various gases at o deg. C.
and atmospheric pressure, as follows:

Oxygen, 4410000000 per second,

Nitrogen, 5021000000 per second,

Hydrogen, 10040000000 per second.

62 THE MONIST.

method. Every theory which serves to bring disconnected facts
into harmonious relation has truth in it, and a rejection of a theory
in its definite form, after it has served its purpose, is not to discredit
its utility. The relations exist and each new theory serves to exhibit
these relations more completely, till the approximation to complete
harmony, i. e., explanation, is reached.

It became evident when the attempt was made to apply the
atomic theory to physical problems that it was insufficient or in-
correct. The emission theory of light proposed by Newton, on the
basis of the rectilinear factors in its propagation, proved incapable
of explaining the transverse vibrations indicated by the phenomena
of polarisation, etc. This and many other insufficiencies led to the
necessity of recognising an imponderable ether, which, nevertheless,
was obliged to possess many of the characteristics of the homo-
geneous solid ; and thus it came about that two contradictory con-
cepts contrived to occupy the field together, and matter was sup-
posed to occupy the same space with continuous ether and to be
acted upon by it, while having none of its properties. A third entity,
energy, by which alone ether and matter can be known, was postu-
lated as acting upon and through both. Curiously enough, the very
power of acting which is all of energy is impossible without ether
and matter; and we have the third absurdity of an agent which
cannot act alone, endowed with the power to act, when it comes in
contact with matter, in which it immediately develops properties
which have no active existence, except as acted upon by energy.

These philosophical absurdities are tolerated by those physicists
who clearly recognise them, because of the difficulty of providing
a practicable substitute for the elaborate systems, which have grown
up in the two allied domains of physics and chemistry within the
last few years.

Now, having spent a hundred years in founding and perfecting
the atomic hypothesis and bolstering it up with etheric creations of
imagination, nothing is more characteristic of scientific spirit than
that science should make every effort to destroy or replace it. This
is the work of the twentieth century.

Newton was satisfied with the solid singleness of the Lucretian

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 63

indivisibles, though he too found the ether a necessary adjunct.
The defects in the atomic hypothesis are nowhere more evident than
in the characters of the so-called ether invented (one can hardly
say discovered) by Faraday and Clerk Maxwell. But even after
inventing such a medium, it was not found possible to invent prop-
erties for it that would satisfy the conditions. A gas will not exe-
cute luminous vibrations and the anomalous solid it was once sup-
posed to resemble could have no stable equilibrium. Material status
is denied it, yet without it we are told, there could not be gravitation,
and yet weight is fundamental to atoms. Without the ether atoms
could not communicate. Matter is not conceivable apart from the
medium which transmits its activities. Observe here that the very
qualities or attributes, by which alone matter is supposed to be
known, are "inconceivable apart from this invented ether which has
none of them." This sounds suspiciously like nonsense.

This medium is essentially limitless and universal. It is a
short step to the denial of this matter which thus plays hide-and-seek
with our reason. This Kelvin did by using Helmholtz's vortex ring
phenomena to illustrate a kind of atom composed of ether by the
isolation of portions of the ether affected by vector motions. Such
vortex atoms were found by mathematical calculation to be capable
of permanent separate existence, by virtue of the peculiar form of
their activities. Their indispensable matrix is a perfect fluid.

By going a little further, Professor Larmor has urged that
atoms are foci of etherial strain. But, putting aside the seductions
of this line of thought, whose mathematical abstruseness has hin-
dered its popular acceptance, let us pursue the downward career of
the atom.

Lockyer urged consistently from the results of his spectroscopic
work, that in the furnaces of the sun, matter exists in a still more
elementary condition than the atomic. Through what is called the
"Zeeman" effect, magnetic phenomena are made to give confirmatory
evidence of this suggestion. But it was a result of the investigations
of greatly attenuated matter in Crooke's tubes that the evidence be-
came most convincing. When electrodes are introduced into such
a glass tube and the air exhausted, till the pressure is, say, one one-

64 THE MONIST.

millionth of an atmosphere, an electric current, in its passage, de-
velops peculiar phenomena. It is now borne across the partial
vacuum by a stream of particles from the negative pole, and these
particles are invisible until they impinge on the glass, when they
become visibly luminous or phosphorescent. It is found that the
stream is susceptible to magnetic influence, and, for this reason, it
is supposed to be molecular. The discharge tends to describe a
circle about the line of magnetic force as an axis.

This "matter" was described by Crookes as being in a fourth
state, as it does not perfectly obey the laws of solids, liquids, or
gases ; it is, in fact the so-called "radiant matter." These "cathode
rays" pass freely through thin metallic films and discharge electrified
bodies by making the surrounding dielectric temporarily conductive.
These rays also affect photographic plates.

Oxygen, at one-sixteenth pressure, is exactly as permeable to
cathode rays as is hydrogen at normal pressure ; and this fact is very
significant.

"Roentgen rays" are also produced by bombardment of walls
of vacuum tubes by radiant matter, but are enormously penetrative
of many opaque substances. They cannot, however, be diverted
from their paths by magnetic influence. For this reason, cathode
rays are said to be corpuscular, and Roentgen rays are etherial,
movement alone being supposed to be transmitted. Here, however,
is a case where the properties of the two things are exceedingly
similar and the fundamental distinction between the behavior of
material particles and etherial vibrations breaks down. We may be
forgiven for doubting the existence of such fundamental distinc-
tion, at least in this case.

But, returning to the cathode ray material, it is concluded that
it is composed of neither molecules nor atoms. Whatever the kind
of gas in which they are produced, their properties are identical.
Perhaps we have here the "protyle" or primeval material — the Ur-
stoff of earlier speculative physicists.

These infra-atomic elements can only be produced by means
of electricity and are always "charged," and this lends plausibility to
the description by J. J. Thomson of cathode rays as "convection

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 65

currents" of electricity. He adduces reasons for believing that these
"corpuscles" are one-thousand times lighter than hydrogen atoms,
and that they form "invariable constituents of the atoms or mole-
cules of all gases and presumably of all liquids and solids." If
these are ultimate electrical units, the name "electrons" is appropriate
for them. A confusion often arises here by employing "ion" for
"electron," and physicists speak of "ionising" the air. Gases are
'ionised," when their molecules are broken up into smaller particles
or ions, each associated with an electron. The electrons have the
power of electrical conduction. Ideas here are as yet very hazy,
and the minute discussion of them here would be unprofitable. Per-
haps, the tendency represented by Larmor to believe that an atom
is an aggregate of electrons in vector motion, that its mass is pro-
portional to the number of these constituents, and that the inter-
atomic forces are electrical, is now in the ascendent.

These suggestions might have been relegated to the limbo of
defunct theories, but for the startling and rather disconcerting dis-
coveries, in connection with radiant matter, recently made in uranium
compounds and related substances. Uranium, thorium, and radium
have the highest of known atomic weights, and this fact suggests
that if atomic equilibrium really be unstable, the effects of interfer-
ence or incipient break-down should be observed in the case of these
elements, if anywhere. In fact, the rarity of these metals may be
due to the fact that they are unstable and liable to subversion or
inorganic decomposition. Radiation, like phosphorescence in ani-
mate matter, may be a species of decay.

Electrical tests of radio-activity carried on by Rutherford and
Soddy at Montreal promise a quantitative measure of this activity.
The ionisation of a given quantity of air was measured by the effect
on a constant current, as read by an electrometer. Thus, the leak-
age of electricity under the influence of the radiations can be meas-
ured very accurately and a standard of comparison secured.

Thorium and radium give off continuously three kinds of rays
called alpha (atomic), beta (cathodic), and gamma (etherial). The
first or alpha rays are believed to be composed of atoms (perhaps of
helium) and are charged with positive electricity, and they can be

66 THE MONIST.

deflected by a magnet. They move with a velocity of some 16,000
miles per second and are powerful ionising agents. Beta rays, on
the other hand, are cathodic, and the particles may be one one-
thousandth of the weight of hydrogen atoms. They are positively
electric and highly actinic. They are dispersed unequally, forming
what has been called a "magnetic spectrum." Gamma rays are
believed by Madame Curie to be ultra-luminous vibrations. They
are not deflected by a magnet.

Besides the above, the substances above named slowly give off
what appear to be gaseous emanations that can be condensed by
intense cold. By means of these emanations are explained "induced"
radio-activities in objects adjacent to radiantly active materials.
These emanations are self-luminous. From experiments so far
made, Professor Rutherford inclined to the belief that the alpha rays
are really helium atoms and the emanations also behave like this
element. It is possible, then, that radium spontaneously decomposes
in forming helium at ordinary temperatures.

The production of heat by radium, independent of other source,
is a significant fact and has been supposed to show that this element
is continually liberating atomic energy.

Hitherto, we have had to do with molecular effects; here it is
possibly a case where deeper reservoirs of force residing in the atom
have been tapped. If a radium atom contains 258,000 electrons,
J. J. Thomson concludes that the diminution of the intrinsic energy
of radium atoms by one per cent, would keep up the emission phe-
nomena for a period of 30,000 years. If 3.6 grammes of radium
existed in each cubic metre of the sun's volume at the surface, it
would be sufficient, according to Wilson, to supply the totality of
solar radiation. These guesses serve merely to suggest what a mass
of energy may lie concealed, entirely inappreciable to scientific instru-
ments, in the "atomic" structure of the most tenuous gases. A
gramme of radium, according to one author, has power enough to
raise 500 tons a mile high.

But this fatal quality of dissociation appears to be universal, as
Sir William Crookes says. Bewildering as is the mass of new facts
and still larger crop of new speculation, it is clear that atoms in the

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 67

old sense can no longer be accepted. With the atom, a whole world
of varied and enormous activities has been discovered, and the door
out has been left ajar so that these forces can no longer be kept
sealed. Pandora's box is open and the plague of new speculation is
abroad.

The simplest view that can be taken is that the integrity of
what we call an atom is in the nature of an equilibrium. Mathe-
matical and physical experience shows that vector motions (rota-
tional energy, etc.) are different from energy in rectilinear or radial
translation, and that there may be a high degree of independence
between these two sorts of energy, and that two instances of vector
motions may mutually influence each other in various phases, de-
pending on their correspondence in time and mode. The solenoid
illustrates this point roughly.

Physics is inclined to suggest an electrical force as behind all
so-called material phenomena, and the recent results of radium in-
vestigation tend to support the suggestion.

Meanwhile, one result is plain: cosmological speculation can
profitably go no further than to take the actual data of experience,
which gives us only energy in various manifestations, and it is by
no means clear that anything will ever be gained by seeking an
explanation of the ultimate fact of experience by invented "carriers,"
"media," postulated to "explain" what is by nature inexplicable.
Further discussion may, however, be postponed till we have con-
sidered the other material alternative.

"We are acquainted with matter only as that which may have
energy communicated to it from other matter. Energy, on the other
hand, we know only as that which in all natural phenomena is con-
tinually passing from one portion of matter to another." — Maxwell.

THE PLENUM.

The defectiveness of any atomic conception of matter appealed
to a certain class of minds, from the first. As a mere abstraction, it
seemed unthinkable that the continuous translation of force through
space could take place if space were but partly filled. Atoms, if
capable of independent action at all, required to be separated from

68 THE MONIST.

one another by such spaces. Nature, especially as we have said,
the nature of the human mind, abhors a vacuum, and it was inevi-
table that the atomic hypothesis should be substituted for or sup-
plemented by, the concept of a plenum or something filling space
completely.

Even Anaximander seems to have had some such idea in his
apxri or Urstoff. This unlimited, undefined, but not immaterial,
ground of energy was in so far dynamic, as it possessed the eternal
property of motion, but it was not freed from the materialistic tend-
ency of the Ionic school in which it developed. There was a combi-
nation of the energic with the plenistic ideas, which were too vaguely
expressed to have more than an historic interest.

The plenum of Descartes was something like extension. There
are two substances, spirit and matter. The attribute and essence of
matter is extension. This dualism was bridged by Malebranche,
but there is nothing to explain the nature of the universal plenum.
Descartes does explain light as generated by a pressure throughout
an infinitely elastic medium filling space. Newton, though advocat-
ing a corpuscular theory of light, also taught that heat may be con-
veyed through a vacuum "by vibrations of a much subtler medium
than air," and adds, "is not this medium the same with the medium
by which light is refracted and reflected?" He also employs the
ether to account for gravitation. Hearing and animal motion he
also supposed to be brought about by the vibrations of ether.

The theory of the ether, as now universally taught, results from
the necessity felt for a medium to transmit energy from point to
point. Light, for example, moves at a finite rate from the source
of generation, and, in as much as the phenomena of destructive
interference seem to forbid the idea that light is a substance emitted
from the luminous body, as held by Newton, the only recourse
was to postulate a medium of some kind in which disturbances may
be propagated in all directions. We have the analogy of sound.
Sound waves are not propagated in vacua. It requires a medium,
in this case air or some fluid or solid substance. In like manner, it
is supposed, there must be a medium for the light, heat, and elec-
trical vibrations.

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 69

Huygens is credited with being the real inventor of the etherial
hypothesis in its present form, and it cannot be denied that the
doctrine has been most fruitful. The present tendency is perhaps
to consider even the phenomena of matter itself as manifestations
of energy stored in ether. Potential energy is considered to be
energy stored in the ether and may be simply motion of the ether,
so that all energy will be found to be, as it theoretically must be,
kinetic.

Two properties must be assumed to satisfy the conditions, for
which ether was invented, viz., elasticity and density. In the case
of a vibrating elastic solid, the energy is half in the form of kinetic
energy due to the vibratory motions of the parts of the body, the
other half being potential or stored up in the distortion of its parts.
It has been found that the vibrations of light are of such a nature
as would be impossible to either liquid or gas, so that something
analogous to the solid state is required. This state is found by
mathematical research to be unstable. It results that the ether has
no scientific footing, but has the anomalous status of being some-
thing of pure invention, failing to satisfy the conditions which alone
led to its invention.

As a matter of fact, all the discussions of wave phenomena
would be just as intelligible as they now are, if the idea of ether
were eliminated. Or, rather, this would be the case if the mind
would disabuse itself of the analogy of water and sound vibrations,
which seem to require a medium. Here the more suitable expres-
sion is that waves of sound are alternating forms of activity recog-
nised in conditions satisfied when vested in what we call liquid or
other matter. It must not be forgotten that the energy involved in
sound is not lost, when the sound wave is prevented from proceeding
by an interposed vacuum. Its critical point is reached, and it as-
sumes another form. These modes are really expressions of inter-
ference of forces, residing, as we are wont to say, in the forms of
matter called media for sound waves.

Optics talks of the kinetic energy of a vibrating particle, dis-
tribution of energy in the case of a medium disturbed, etc. All of
these concepts lose nothing if divorced from the idea of a medium.

7O THE MONIST.

A study of electro-magnetic phenomena has been used to
fortify the ether hypothesis, and, by a curious fatality, it now seems
that its perfection will but serve to complete the overthrow of that
theory. The ether about an electrified body is supposed to be affected
or thrown into activity. When thus active it is polarised. When the
body is discharged the activity ceases or is dissipated. Alternating
electrical charges are accompanied by changes of state or vibra-
tions of the ether, and, if the charge be varied periodically and with
sufficient frequency, we have a vibration at each point analogous to,
and perhaps identical with, what occurs in the propagation of light.
Light and heat waves have been reduced to the same category, both
being waves of electrical polarisation. Professor Hertz's experi-
ments related to oscillating discharges having a period of about
one 3O,ooo,oooth of a second, and reflection and interference of
electro-magnetic waves are ingeniously brought within the sphere
of observation. Reflected waves interfere with direct waves as in
the case of sound. Most of the experiments usually carried out
with light and heat waves were successfully tried with the electro-
magnetic vibrations. From the mode of production, it follows that
these vibrations consist of transverse vibrations, and that they are
plane-polarised. Without carrying out the comparisons between the
electro-magnetic and light vibrations further, we may add that, ac-
cording to the electro-magnetic theory of light, the vibration is a
transverse periodic disturbance attended by electric force in one
direction and magnetic force in the perpendicular direction. Com-
parison of velocities and refractive indices reveal the required har-
monies. The original conjecture of Faraday (Experimental Re-
searches, 3075) that the electro-magnetic action may be a function
of the ether, seems about to be confirmed, except that by the ether
we are brought no nearer to a solution of the general problem.

Even if the difficulty involved in the supposition that an elastic
or compressible medium must be discontinuous be ignored, and we
assume that a medium may be homogeneous and continuous as re-
gards density, and yet may be really heterogeneous by virtue of its
motions, as in the case of the vortex atom, in a perfect liquid-solid,
still are we no better off with our medium than we would be, if we

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 71

substitute energy, instead of mass, in our equations and do away
with the material element and medium altogether.4

There is an important fact which physical theorists are prone
to forget, and, by neglecting it, are led to state hypotheses as proven
facts, viz., we cannot know atoms or molecules individually, but, if
at all, only in the aggregate, and what we infer of their structure
must be by observing, experimentally, the gross results of their
interaction in masses. For example, according to Avogadro's law,
there are simple volumetric relations among gases when they com-
bine. The densities of gases are proportional to their molecular
weights. But the statement of Avogadro's law, in the usual way,
that "all gases (conditions being the same) contain the same number
of molecules per unit of volume," is pure hypothesis, yet it passes
in physical literature as "established fact." The question of the
nature, nay of the existence of molecules, is begged throughout.

Any theory, molecular or otherwise, which can acceptably ex-
plain the constitution of the physical universe, must bring into har-
mony the different facts which pass under the names inertia, elas-
ticity, attraction, and stability. But, by explaining, we do not mean
the clearing up of the ultimate why or the final what, but the arran-
ging of all the facts in a congruous system which is the ultimate

*An illustration of the tedency of modern physics in relation to the con-
cept of materiality, is given by Drude's Lehrbuch der Optik, which is devoted
largely to the mathematical development of the electro-magnetic theory of
light. In this work we find such expressions as "The vacuum (the free
ether)," "the velocity of light in empty space (the free ether)," and the fol-
lowing more definite statement: "The concept of the absolutely quiescent
ether is most simply and naturally expressed if we understand by ether, not
a substance, but simply space provided with certain physical peculiarities."
The naive innocence of metaphysical taint in this statement, where space is
supposed to be clothed with certain physical attributes, may seem amusing, but
we see at least a recognition of the difficulties inherent in the postulate of ma-
terial media. The magnificent hypothetical structure erected by H. A. Lorenz
(Versuch einer Theorie der electrischen und optischen Erscheinungen in be-
wegten Korpern, Leiden, 1895) rests on the assumption that the ether is al-
ways in complete state of rest. The chief value of the electro-magnetic theory
is that no special assumptions are necessary for the propagation of light, but
its laws follow directly from those of electric and magnetic forces as already
worked out, or, as Drude says, "It does, indeed, represent a remarkable ad-
vance in natural science when two hitherto unrelated realms, like optics and
electrical science, are brought into relations by mensurable control."

72 THE M0NIST.

how. The dynamic view is that the complete comprehension of the
how is all that we can ever know of either what or why. It is not
sought to "unify the conception of chemistry and physics and con-
solidate these sciences into one grand science of matter," as sug-
gested by Risteen, but, on the contrary, it finds the essence of things
in their behavior and is satisfied, if it may continually approximate
to a knowledge of the forms of these activities, which to know is to
understand the physical universe. Nor does one doubt that the
energy which finds expression in material terms is, in last analysis,
of one kind with that whose complex trajectory is interpreted in
consciousness.

When the physical demonstrator by means of a box punctured
on one side and furnished on the other with a taut membrane, by
tapping on the membrane, projects smoke rings across the room and
shows us how the smoke curls in vortex-flow along the axis of trans-
lation and how two such rings may be made to interfere and inter-
twine in most complicated fashion, he is careful to tell us that the
smoke which we see performing these amusing antics has nothing
to do with the phenomena, except to make them visible to us. The
vortices would be there just the same, if no smoke were in the box.
So when the vortex atom, which comes the nearest at present to
affording a scientific concept of the physical unit, is introduced,
Lord Kelvin is careful to exclude from the ether, in which such
atoms are supposed to exist, all material postulates. It must have
the character of a perfect fluid. Thus, we see the postulate of mate-
riality is but the smoke for making the vortices comprehensible to
the lay mind. A brief analysis of the vortex-atom, or, better, the
vortex unit, will make this clear.

i. Helmholtz, in his definition of vortex units by mathematical
process, showed that the fluid in which such vortices exist must be
frictionless, homogeneous, and incompressible. Such a combination
is incompatible with what we are supposed to know of matter, but
granting these conditions, a vortex could never be produced or
destroyed in such a medium, and it follows that it would be con-
served forever, or that it would exist as long as the medium con-
tinues.

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 73

2. Such a vortex would always contain the same portion of the
fluid. It moves as a whole — it is not alone the1 motion that is propa-
gated, as in wave motion. Thus the energy is doubly identified
with the fluid (or conversely) both as to permanence and as to
content.

3. Now, compare these points with the definition of matter by
Lord Kelvin, the other great student of vortices. "Matter is the
rotating parts of an inert perfect fluid which fills all space, but
which, when not rotating, is absolutely unperceived by our senses."

If the statements under I and 2 are correct, the expression,
"when not rotating," is inapplicable; for, if not rotating, this fluid
can never be made to rotate, and, if only part be rotating and the
rest not, then the part not rotating cannot affect that which is, nor
can it be affected by it — it is "inert." If it existed we could never
know it, nor could we comprehend in what its existence consists.
It would be a case of "pure being," equivalent to "non-being" in
the popular nonsense, improperly attributed to Hegel.

We see that the only things which could cause the vortices to
affect one another are their respective activities. If matter is elastic,
it is because there are such things as repellant phases of activity ; if
there be attraction, it is because certain phases coincide or have con-
gruous periodicities; stability and individuality are inherent in the
nature of vortex or vector activities, corresponding to intrinsic or
genetic modes; and, finally, inertia is but another name for spon-
taneity, the last irresolvable, constituent attribute of energy.

It must be noted, in passing, that vortex units are not neces-
sarily vortex rings. A better analogy is, perhaps, that of a spheroid
of "free path" or field of activity in which the spheroid is tending
constantly and in all parts to be everted. A ball continually turn-
ing itself wrong side out by a kind of convection motion is a con-
venient representation. This is a fourth-dimension motion of great
mathematical complexity.

Doubtless, every genuine discovery made by the newer molec-
ular physics, however erroneously applied, will find a place in the
new dvnamic science.

74 THE MONIST.

ENERGISM.

What has already been said, while giving but the barest out-
line of an exceedingly complicated subject, may serve to illustrate
the difficulties in the way of any materialistic hypothesis as a foun-
dation of practical science, not to mention the philosophical difficul-
ties encountered at the outset.

There remains but one possibility — the appeal to energy. This
method of approach seems very difficult, especially to those who have
served an apprenticeship to modern physical science, because the
idea of a medium or vehicle of force has become so strongly in-
trenched in the didactic literature and in the formulae with which
much of the practical work is done. It must be remembered, how-
ever, that the fact that a velocipede is equipped with three wheels
does not prove that a bicycle may not move faster. If matter is un-
necessary as a practical utility, the sooner this conception can be
removed the better for the progress of science.

Historically, germs of the energic idea have always existed.
It may seem fanciful to discover the nucleus of the dynamic concept
in the dawn of philosophy, but in the apxh or Ur staff of Anaximander
we have a ground of energy, which, while not purely dynamic, and
developing in dualistic form in antinomies of heat and cold, still indi-
cated a naive appreciation of energy as real, apart from a material
substrate. This method of thought was common till Dalton, with
his atomic hypothesis, gave it a long sleep. Malebranche postu-
lated an absolute substance which includes all things and also the
idea of all things, to resolve the dualism of Cartesian substance.
Spinoza, too, denies the possibility of numerous substances, and
demands an absolute substance, which is the real ground of all
existence and the source of all reality. All expression of this reality
is a limitation or negation (omnis determinatio est negatio). Matter
and spirit are the two forms of self-limitation in which absolute
substance appears. These are the attributes in the form of which
substance reveals itself. There may, indeed, be many attributes in
the substance, but, by the nature of the human mind, we distinguish
subjective and objective.

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 75

In Spinoza we find the Cartesian dualism between matter and
spirit maintained. There is a parallelism, but mind cannot work on
matter, nor can matter influence spirit. These two are phases of
one reality, so that there is correspondence but no interaction. (It
should be observed that this is a much deeper view than that ex-
pressed in the current psycho-physical parallelism of psychology,
which, as usually formulated, means nothing but the statement of
an observed coincidence.)

The reconciliation of these difficulties is to be found in ener-
gism, which explains that neither body (matter) nor spirit (soul)
exist as independent entities, but both are ways of experiencing the
same energy. As Spinoza admits, the distinction between matter and
spirit is of our own creation. When I feel a sensation and discrimi-
nate my feeling of it from some outside activity, this is a valid dis-
crimination for me. The whole chain of activities between the out-
side source of light and the accommodation activities in my organ,
form parts of a segment of activity, which in itself requires no ex-
planation beyond the fact of spontaneous doing. The things I
think about this (objective aspect) and the thinking about it (sub-
jective part) cannot be distinguished as existences (matter and
spirit) parallel to each other. Whatever truth they have inheres
in the activity producing both.

At the present time, science represents the remarkable and
anomalous spectacle of a vast mass of chemical and physical litera-
ture permeated and dominated by materialistic-mechanical theories.
The entire pedagogic machinery, including text-books and teachers,
is adapted to impart a strict construction of matter and energy as
the twin realities in the physical universe, while, at the same time,
the foremost investigators, and the authors of some of the very
texts referred to, have openly or by implication abandoned these
postulates.

The student of Ostwald's General Chemistry, for example, will
find little to prepare him for such views as those presented in his
address at Luebeck entitled "The Overcoming of Scientific Mate-
realism."

As this writer observes, there are collected in the idea of matter

76 THE-MONIST.

numerous elements of sensuous experience, like weight, extension,
chemical properties, etc., which are found by experience associated
with mass and connected proporionally with it, so that "the physical
law of conservation of mass was transformed into the metaphysical
axiom of the conservation of matter." "It is important to note that
in this extension a number of hypothetical elements have been
wrought into what was originally an entirely non-hypothetical no-
tion." The necessary results of this hypothetical matter-hypothesis
lead to absurdities, to which we have become so accustomed as
hardly to notice them. As Ostwald says, speaking of the assumed
persistence of the original substances in compounds: "When we
consider, however, that all that we know of any substance is a
knowledge of its properties, we see that the assumption that a defi-
nite substance remains, although it no longer retains any of its prop-
erties, is little removed from nonsense."

Nor is this all, for, having adopted the matter postulate, it is
necessary to supplement it by the doctrine of energy. As matter is
quiescent and unalterable, it is necessary to connect it with something
to correspond with the changes known in experience. This constant
cause of motion is energy, and this, like matter, is supposed to be a
constant in the sense that its total amount is never increased or
destroyed. Ostwald, again, says, respecting the mechanical con-
struction of nature built upon the two above formulae : "One usually
does not observe to what extraordinarily great extent these gen-
erally received views are hypothetical not to say metaphysical. On
the contrary, it is customary to assume that they express the max-
imum of exact formulation of actual relations. On the other hand,
it must be emphasised that a proof of the consequences following
from these theories, that all the non-mechanical processes like heat,
light, electricity, and magnetism, are actually mechanical, has not
been afforded in a single case."

We have traced in outline the transformations of the optical
theory. The others are in no better case.

But if we are deprived of the assistance afforded to imagination
by the concept of moving atoms, how are we to conceive of the world
of matter and energy at all? Ostwald answers this question very

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 77

uncompromisingly : "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven im-
age or likeness. It is not our duty to view the world in a more or
less dull or irregular mirror, but rather, so far as the structure of
our minds will permit, to view it directly." The function of science
is to bring into such definite relations realities, i. e., demonstrable
and mensurable quantities, that when one is given the other may
inevitably be assumed.

This is the energic point of view — not the substitution of one
complicated hypothesis for another, but the eliminating of the hypo-
thetical, so far as possible, and the appeal to facts of experience.
To the criticism that the concept is empty and lacking in clearness
as compared to the material view, we must reply that sensuous per-
ception is a reaction induced by variations in the intensity and form
of energy and nothing is gained by postulating media or bearers.
Remember that matter is the abstract and energy is the real. The
external reality is a reality of relation which the mind makes into
substance, but substance is not necessarily matter. A classical Eng-
lish passage speaks of faith as substance.

When asked what advantages are to be expected from a resort
to energic methods of notation in dealing with natural phenomena,
the energist answers: "First of all, the very important one that by
this means we have a natural science of fact and not of hypothesis.
We no longer inquire about forces that we cannot demonstrate
operating between atoms which we cannot observe, but, in forming
judgment of a process, we examine the kind and amount of energy
entering and leaving." This method is that proposed by Kirchhoff
who wished to supplant explanation of nature by description of
nature.

Physics shows that the ratios used in her computations are
without exception ratios of different kinds of energy. Aside from
the two forms or categories of perception, space and time, energy
is the only measure. But space and time are measured by energy
alone, for energy forms their only content. The predicate of matter
cannot find a mathematical expression in eqations of energy. Only
commensurables can be compared.

When physics repudiated force (in the usual sense) and chem-

78 THE -MONIST.

istry reputiated matter and both cry "back to nature — back to ex-
perience," what science is to reap the benefit, or rather is to fill the
breach? There can be but one answer. Psychological moments
alone remain reliable and trustworthy measures of quantity. In
last resort we discover (what has always been known but never
realised) that the only energy we really know is that which we our-
selves generate. The axiom at the bottom of all science is that the
force impinging on my sensorium is commensurate, according to
some law, known or unknown, with the reaction within my kinesodic
system. In other words, the only real measure is mental reaction
thereto — sense of effort or strain. Everything quantitative in science
has to be interpreted in terms of effort before it can be recognised
in any consciousness. It is customary, e. g., to reduce all measures
of physical quantities to scales on some dial, let it be of an electro-
meter, ammeter, barometer, thermometer, photometer, or the like.
The reading of such scales, is in final analysis, reducible to muscle-
strain estimates in the eye-muscles, and the graduation of the scales
may be reduced to a function of muscle-strain estimates in the hand,
etc. It would seem, then, that we really estimate in homo-ergs or
man-powers. May it not be possible to reduce all to a standard,
say of "psychs"? The suggestion is not so far-fetched as it may
seem, but the objection we at first meet is that there is no assurance
that a unit of reference that would be true for me would be abso-
lute for all men. A John Smith-erg might not equal a Joe Brown-
erg. Expressed scientifically, the neural mechanism of man is so
complex and the number of variables is so enormous and its pro-
cesses so varied that it is difficult to discover a constant for a
standard of reference. The resistance offered by the organism to ex-
ternal influences varies. Attention is not a constant, and all mental
phenomena are functions of attention. In this dilemma the mind
has recourse to an indirection. Being unable to find any single
constant, it utilises a ratio. Under the assumption that the variables
in perception affect both terms alike, then the result will be the
same whenever the ratio affects the mind, no matter what phase
attention may be in. This is a process of comparison.

To illustrate crudely, I may not be able to tell how far I travel

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 79

by summing up the total effort expended in walking, but I am able
to reach an estimate by comparing a constant of effort in walking
multiplied by the time employed, with a similar effort multiplied by
twice that time. The mind very accurately detects differences when
it fails to measure their amount. (D :te ::D' :2te) = (D=2D'),
where e is a constant of effort put forth at any time, i. e., the habit-
ual gait in our illustration. Very little experience shows that both
factors, time and effort, vary below the threshold of consciousness
and do not vary uniformly. If they varied proportionally and the
equation could be written D : te/x :: D' : 2te/x, it would still be
available but it must be written D : te/x ::D' : 2te/y, and cannot
be solved. It having proven useless to attempt to construct a con-
stant ratio on the subjective basis only, i. e., entirely on the basis of
internal experience, values for x and y, i. e., for the variables in
our equation, must be derived from without. The uniformities in
experience, such as the succession of day and night and the annual
astronomical recurrences, are used and continually corrected, till
they can be represented by a contrivance like a clock or metronome.
In this way, the internal time estimate becomes definitely linked to
external changes. In similar ways, the other term, say, the effort
in walking, is linked to external correspondences so that x and y
become known in terms of t and e and the ratios t/x and e/y can be
used in our construction of the world of experience. At the same
time, it must not be forgotten that the ultimate standard is internal
unit or constant of effort, without which the entire external mech-
anism would be valueless.

We have seen that the three categories of experience are time,
space, and mode. In these three forms all experience is cast. Time
is a necessary form of experience because of psychical limitation;
two events cannot co-exist in consciousness. This is a result of the
unity or individuality of experience. The psychological equivalent
is sequence.

Space is likewise a result of the limitation of experience. Effort
implies change. The external equivalent is motion. These two,
sequence and motion, are the generators of the extended continuum
of experience, which is filled in by the form of experience called

8O THE MONIST,

mode. Two modes may be distinguished, identity and difference,
or, rather, mode consists in the distinction of difference from
identity.

While the mind is incompetent to make quantitative distinc-
tions directly, it has the most remarkable clearness and certainty
in dealing with difference. Psychologists have used all their in-
genuity to utilise this ability to discriminate differences as a basis
for a quantitative psychological science. It would appear that a
series could be made after the analogy of differential calculus, in
which the several terms should increase by a difference less than
any assignable quantity (the discrimination quantity), and that
such a series could be compared with a corresponding series of ex-
ternal quantities, thus giving rise to a mathematical relation that
should form a quantitative unit for sense perception. Almost the
only result, so far, of this effort is expressed in the so-called Weber's
law that while the series of excitations increases in arithmetical ratio
the corresponding series of excitations must increase by geometrical
ratio. And yet even this is found to express only approximately
and within narrow and arbitrary limits a relation for which no
adequate or constant explanation can be given.

A fundamental criticism of attempts to use the sense of effort
as a unit of measure is that two or more things are frequently con-
fused under this head. In the first place, the muscle sense or sense
of muscular effort, if we are justified in speaking of such a sense,
is a sensation-complex . It is not analoguous with the sense of hav-
ing originated a voluntary act. Attention, which is involved in all
receptive mental acts, involves, among other things, accommodative
effects in organs of sense, it may also involve accomodation phe-
nomena in the brain itself.

The inquiry remains : Is there such a thing as effort in conscious-
ness apart from these accommodations? A prevailing psychological
interpretation is to the effect that the afferent nerve current passes
over into the efferent, according to conditions of structural organi-
sation, and that the issuing into the efferent expression produces,
or is accompanied by, a sense of action, or impulse, or initiative, or
effort, out of which the sense of having-done-it arises. It is even

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 8l

customary to speak of the will as arising subsequent to the volun-
tary act as a consequence of the act. However this may be, if
muscular sense is really a sensation, like other sensations, and not
a direct feeling of psychical activity or participation, then our sup-
posed quantitative unit reduces to a series of modes. Instead of a
simple more or less, we have different impressions which we inter-
pret as more or less. The sensation produced by a weight of two
pounds is a different sensation from that produced by one pound,
not a more of an identical sensation. Evidently, we are on the
wrong track somewhere. This raises the general question whether
it is possible to use pure modality as a measure of quantity. A
light twice as bright as another does not produce a sensation twice
as intense nor one in logarithmic series as compared to the series
of stimuli. We do recognise identity and change.

Theoretically, it is wrong to seek quantitative measures in the
categories of external apprehension, since we are seeking an internal
measure. Sensations cannot give this as they are all projected out ,
ward or externalised. Succession is, strictly speaking, all that the
internal sense or inner experience can contribute.

Can it be, then, that the formal subjective measure is to be ex-
pressed in most general terms by at, where a is any attribute and t
is succession or time? Such would seem to be the necessary a
priori assumption. A test of such an assumption may be found in
its applications.

Space, when filled, consists of one, and another, and another,
etc. An absolutely uniform field of vision (or of any other expe-
rience, if possible,) could not be made to seem extended. This
creeping from particular to particular is essentially, on its inward
side, temporal, as it becomes on its outward side spatial. All our
measures are now reduced to serial terms. When we say that one
light is twice as bright as another, or that one star differs from
another in glory, we express the results of a complicated system
of judgments. If it takes me twice as long to traverse the plowed
ground as the meadow with the same constant of effort, I have a
measure for effort. Even here the difficulty is at once perceived

82 THE MONIST.

that we have no subjective time measure. We may use heart-beats,
but even heart-beats are objective to the mind.

Succession and change, in last analysis, must be our subjective
contribution to quantitative science, and it is useless to seek more.
These forms are filled by experience, and we find our periodicity
in external experience. The curious, if not altogether unexpected,
result is that the soul itself has neither time nor extension.

After having appealed in vain to psychology for a complete
quantitative unit, we are prepared to admit that quantitative esti-
mation is but one of the ways in which we affirm attribute. Its real-
ity is neither wholly subjective nor wholly objective, but one of the
forms of reality resulting from the union of both.

If we eliminate matter as irrelevant, we have left energy, which
reveals itself to us in terms of succession and mode. It produces
varied sensations, and these are arranged in sequence. Our ability
to recognise identity in mode gives rise to periodicity, and this is
the measure of time. Some particular period, say a second, is
chosen as such unit.

The negation of succession is co-tempo raneity which is possible
in connection with diversity of mode, and this is only objectively
possible in terms of space. Two identical points have no spatial
relations. All space relations are possible only upon the assumption
or condition of co-temporaneity. The following psychological for-
mulae may be useful :

1. Sequence with identity produces periodicity — time.

2. Co-temporaneity (o X sequence) with diversity produces
space.

3. Sequence with diversity produces change.

4. Co-temporaneity with identity produces intensity.
These abstractions require elaboration.

1. (Seq. X Iden. = T.) I experience a series of sensations,
tic, tac; tic, tac; tic, tac; etc. One follows another in temporal se-
quence. But I detect a rhythm or identity. Where it not for the
rhythm I should get no time measure. Thus I have succession and
identity as necessary elements of temporal mensuration.

2. (o X Seq. X Diver. := S). On the other hand, in space re-

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 83

lations as such, sequence is impossible. Even when we conceive of
a moving point generating a line, etc., it is always implied that at
the same time the original point and all other points in the line co-
exist in time and are considered together. The diversity of each
point in space is represented by the locus formula, but the origin
represents a constant point of reference, and time is excluded. It
may be replied that time is simply ignored and diversity is all that
is needed to produce a spatial measure. This is not true, for co-
temporaneity is a real concept of form, though impossible in inner
experience. Co-existence and diversity are possible only under
space conditions. This distribution of mode and identity of time
form the psychological data of space.

3. (Seq. X Diver. = C.) Sequence and diversity are, in like
manner, the psychological moments of change. If the sensation or
sense datum be not co-temporaneous, or thought in one time with
its predecessor, it has taken the place of that predecessor and there
has been change.

4. (Cotem. X Iden. = Int.) But, on the other hand, if the
mode has not changed, but is thought into the same time, we get
the concept of intensity or more of the same, or quantity. This
predicate of intensity is not given in experience, but the same may
be said of the others. Time is not a direct element in experience,
though sequence is. Space is not a primary idea but is generated
from co-existing diversities. Change is other than diversity. It
is only when the temporal element is added to difference that the
category of change is formed.

We have given, therefore, these fundamental derived psychic
data of the second order not as subjective predicates, but as the
first results of reaction between subjective and objective. If our
psychological analysis has been correct, by means of these four
moments it should be possible to construe all phenomena possible to
experience. It may be left to mathematical physics to make the
applications of these principles and the necessary substitutions in
the formulae in general use.

In conclusion, we may refer to the metaphysical results which
transform the physical doctrine of energism into the psycho-philo-

84 THE MONIST.

sophical dogma of dynamic monism. In a little book published
anonymously by Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., London, in
1898, entitled The Doctrine of Energy, the author offers suggestions
which deserve a wide reading. "The study of physics can be carried
on practically as a study of phenomena — of heat, colors, sounds,
forces, etc., all of which are kinds of phenomena — without the ex-
pression of any formulated opinion as to their relation with reality."
"But science has been reluctant to recognise that it is now entitled
to dispense with the postulation of matter. The theory, as announced
by the leading men of science, has, therefore, been to the effect that
there exist in the physical universe two real things, matter and en-
ergy, in place of one only, as commonly supposed for so long. We
have elsewhere attempted to show that such a statement of scien-
tific theory is erroneous and redundant; that science is not necessi-
tated to postulate two such entities; but the postulation of energy
supplies all her requirements." "Our view, therefore, is that the
conception of materiality and of real matter can, in the way just
indicated, be in all cases analysed into, and derived from the concep-
tion of energy ; and that science, if consistent, cannot postulate the
reality of matter as well. Potential energy adequately supplies the
conception of a real substratum of which phenomena are the mani-
festations."

To the question: "How do I get beyond my presentiment?
How pass from ideality to existence ?" the answer is, "I never could
have got beyond it or got any suggestion of the reality had I been
related to my presentiment as a passive and percipient subject."
I am in relation with the energic system not merely or primar-
ily as an intelligent percipient of the transformations proceeding
in it at a particular point, but also as a will initiative, to some ex-
tent, of such transmutations and capable of influencing and direct-
ing the physical process." "In my activity there is thus suggested
to me a source of phenomena lying beyond the phenomena them-
selves." "My most incessant mental act is that by which, on analogy
of my own active experience, I refer all phenomena to the under-
lying energic system."

We cannot go into the author's treatment of causation as a

THE PASSING OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 85

derivative from the self-consciousness of initiative, which is then
objectivised and recognised as one with the source of all action —
energy. Enough has been said to indicate a close connection with
the position taken by Schopenhauer in the Fourfold Root. "What
we think under the conception, matter, is the residue which remains
over after bodies have been divested of their shape and of all their
specific qualities; a residue which, precisely on that account, must
be identical in all bodies. Now, these shapes and qualities, which
have been abstracted by us, are nothing but the peculiar, specially
defined way in which these bodies act, which constitutes precisely
their difference. If, therefore, we leave these shapes and qualities
out of consideration, there remains nothing but mere activity in
general, pure action as such, causality itself. Matter is throughout
pure causality, its essence is action in general."

That these views will be slow in finding acceptance among the
rank and file of chemists may be gathered from remarks in F. W.
Clarke's "Wilde Lecture" before the Manchester Philosophical So-
ciety, May, 1903.

"When we say that matter, as we know it? behaves as if made
up of very small discrete particles, we do not lose ourselves in meta-
physics, and we have a definite conception which can be applied to
the correlation of evidence and the solution of problems. Objec-
tions count for nothing against it until something better is offered in
its stead, a condition which the critics of the atomic theory have so
far failed to fulfil."

This illustrates how, for each of us, his own particular brand
of metaphysics seems harmless or not to be metaphysics at all, for
this is exactly the contention, that the material hypothesis is meta-
physical and has added nothing to the definiteness of our concep-
tions of physical phenomena, neither can it legitimately be utilised
for the solution of problems. The abacus has long since been abol-
ished from our schools, is it still necessary to our physicists, must
our chemists still continue to count on their fingers?6

C. L. HERRICK.

5 Italics mine.

8 The question might be asked, (in fact, it has been asked) : "How is it

86 THE MONIST.

possible to get the resistance or limitation necessary for the objects of our
experience out of pure energy?" "Is the element of tension and opposition in
your very conception of energy?"

The reply to this should be based upon an examination of the nature of
the energy concept more detailed than is germain to our present purpose.
The difficulty is, probably, like nearly all philosophical perplexities, a result
of our unhappy logical faculty for splitting things that ought not to be di-
vided. We may undoubtedly think of the word, "doing," apart from the ex-
pression, "doing of something," but it is to be doubted whether we can think
of pure energy at all. We think by "affirming attribute." It is still more
energetically to be insisted that no real severance of the doing from the thing
done is permissible. It is the old matter fallacy or the cause-effect fallacy
in a new guise. If energy is to be set up in the place of matter as a power
behind the throne, let us alone and we will return to our idols.

Viewed from a physical point of view, given no resistance to action,
there is no energy. If we mean anything by energy, it must be valid in that
it is acting. If the sum-total of universal energy were in like phase, it would
be the same as if there were no energy so far as making a universe is con-
ecrned. Herbert Spencer has not lived in vain. Pure being is the same as
non-being. We have had our Hegel. A non-acting deity would not even
potentially be a God.

Practically, energy is called into and remains in existence only under
condition of resistance. Resistance is varied and gives rise to mode in en-
ergy. In an earlier paper the writer defined creation as the self-limitation
of creative power. This is not subject to further analysis. Having no ex-
perience with universal or infinite modes of being, we do not expect to under-
stand what we must nevertheless postulate. If this view is open to the taunt
that we take out no more than we put in and so are no better than prestidigi-
tators, our reply is ready. If other people take out of their logic more than
they put in, they lay themselves open to the charge of dishonesty. The tak-
ing out of more than is put in is called in logic "fallacy."

DID THE MONKS PRESERVE THE LATIN
CLASSICS?

SINCE the civilized world has held the classics in honor, the
admirers of the cell and cloister have claimed that, through-
out the Dark Ages, the monks loved and studied the classics, and,
by copying, preserved them for posterity.

This claim has been pertinaciously urged; and as it has been
admitted by certain writers of good repute and great complaisance,
there is danger that it will become one of the conventional state-
ments in history.

Believing as I do, that the admission has been made without
due examination and in gross misconception of the spirit and his-
tory of Mediaeval times, and particularly of the monastic system
prior to the year 1200, I ask your attention to the opposite view of
this subject. I shall treat it as one purely historical, keeping in
view nothing but the Latin classics, and how they were treated by
the monks of Western Europe up to the end of the twelfth cen-
tury.

EXTENT AND AMOUNT OF ROMAN LITERATURE.

While the modern public is familiar with the multiplication
of books by the printing press, it knows little or nothing of the
ease and rapidity with which the "tachygraphs," the swift penmen
of Rome, threw off their manuscripts. It is difficult for us to con-
ceive that there were in Rome large numbers of professional liter-
ary men, great libraries, public and private, numerous persons
engaged in book-selling as a regular business and having a trade
with all the provinces of the Roman Empire and with booksellers

88 THE MONIST.

in all their cities and towns ; that there were in the Roman Empire
more copyists probably than there are printers in the United
States; that the ancients made better ink than we do; and that
their parchment volumes were more durable than our paper books.
And we, it may be, admit nothing in favor of the Romans, quite
so reluctantly as that, in the matter of books and literature, they
were in some respects, barring the difference between types and
penmanship, quite equal to the Americans of the twentieth cen-
tury.

The Public Libraries of Rome, about the year 100, were mag-
nificent. The Octavian was built of marble; its floors were laid
in mosaic work; its ceilings were frescoed in gold; and the walls
were decorated with glass and ivory. A hundred statues stood
there upon pedestals. In it there were more than one hundred
thousand volumes neatly stored in cases of cedar and ebony. Cata-
logues, with references to each volume, by case and number, hung
upon the walls and pillars. There were tables and seats for the
students ; and assistant librarians were there to find any volume re-
quired.

The Palatine Library rivalled the Octavian ; and the Ulpian,
newly erected by the Emperor, was the most magnificent of the
three. In these libraries were collected the literary treasures of the
Roman Empire, and in them were daily gathered readers, students,
writers and authors.

There were also many private libraries: Every lawyer, author,
rich man and patrician had one. Among the best known collections
in the literature of the age were those which had been begun by
Paulus ^milius, Sulla, Lucullus, Varro, and Cicero. Some of
these were large and were kept in buildings which had been erected
especially for them. There were many others. This we know from
numerous indications in the manners and customs of the times, and
from hints in the books which are still extant. These private
libraries existed not only in Rome, but in the towns and cities of
the provinces, and, doubtless, in the villas of rich men. In the
ruins of Herculaneum one was found. It contained eighteen hun-
dred volumes, sadly charred by the molten lava of many volcanic

DID THE MONKS PRESERVE THE LATIN CLASSICS? 89

eruptions ; but the art of the chemist restored them enough to show
that they were all on the same subject, the Epicurean philosophy.
If the Roman literature contained eighteen hundred books on that
one subject, how many must it have contained in all?

There were schools in all parts of the provinces ; and these
must have created a demand for books. Some of these were
famous, — we would call them colleges, — e. g., those at Carthage,
Marseilles, Lyons and Narbonne. There were schools of rhetoric
at Rhodes and Miletus; of philosophy, at Athens; and of law, at
Beyroot, on the coast of Syria; and there was a renowned Uni-
versity, at Alexandria, in Egypt. Each of these schools gave em-
ployment to copyists.

Some of the swift writers worked alone ; others were employed,
in large numbers, by capitalists. Atticus, the friend of Cicero, is
said to have employed two hundred, most of them slaves. A de-
scription of the Scriptorium or writing room has been handed
down to us. The room was large and furnished with desks for the
copyists. The reader sat on a raised platform in the front and
center; he read slowly, and the copyists wrote. Their work was
carefully revised. When approved, the long strip, on which the
writing was done, was rolled upon a stick, tied up with ribbon or
string, and labeled. It was then ready for sale.

The Roman booksellers often published what is now called
an edition de luxe. The finest of these were written in golden let-
ters on purple vellum and embellished with portraits of emperors,
authors and other celebrities. The elaborate initial letters of books
and chapters were the models of the wonderful decorative illumi-
nation of missals and other precious books of the Middle Ages.

The Romans knew nothing of movable types and printing
presses. Their method of producing by single copies was not so
favorable as ours to the publication of daily newspapers. They
managed, however, to get out two, at Rome. They were called
the Ada D'mrna, a name from which our word "Journal" is derived.
One of them was the official organ of the government; and the
other was devoted to social, political and military news. The
number of copies issued is unknown.

go THE MONIST.

The Roman authors had a custom similar to our reunions to
hear an essay followed by a discussion of it. When an author fin-
ished a work, he invited other authors and the booksellers to hear
and criticize it.

It is a great pity that there is not extant a contemporary bib-
liography of Latin literature. The best help in that regard are the
frequent allusions to books in the works preserved to us. The
elder Pliny, in his thirty-seven books on Natural History, is said
to have quoted by name from several hundred authors. The
younger Pliny claims that, in preparing his history, he consulted
at least a thousand writers of chronicles, annals, history and biog-
raphy. The elder Pliny and Cato each published a Cyclopaedia.
Some authors were prolific; Varro is said to have published more
books than Alexander Dumas.

To the student of history, the above facts will suffice to freshen
his conceptions of the complexity, variety, universality and wealth
of the expression in literature of the mind of ancient Rome.

PERISHED.

Of the innumerable Latin works of the classic period of Rome,
there remain, in round numbers, a hundred: I count the survivors,
mutilated and whole; and of the immense army of more ancient
times, only a company answers to roll-call

About the year 740, Pepin the Short, of France, wrote to
Pope Paul I., asking him as a favor to send to Paris all the books
he could find at Rome. Paul caused diligent search to be made in
the papal palace and the city. The result was, he sent to Pepin
five books: an antiphonal, or elementary book of church music;
a responsal; and three short treatises: one on grammar, one on
orthography and one on geometry.

Between the years 340 and 740, the classics had almost dis-
appeared.

THE MONASTIC SPIRIT.

In those four centuries, the monks were the most striking
feature in the Church of Egypt and of Europe. Who were they?

DID THE MONKS PRESERVE THE LATIN CLASSICS? QI

The answer to this is best gleaned from the lives of the hermit
fathers and the histories of the monasteries. Rev. Charles Kings-
ley, in his book on this subject, gives many of the facts. He says :

"Eight hundred years before St. Anthony fled into the desert, that young
Hindoo rajah, whom men call Buddha now, had fled into the forest, leav-
ing wives and kingdom, to find rest for his soul. He denounced caste; he
preached poverty, asceticism, self-annihilation. He founded a religion * * *
democratic and ascetic, with its convents, saint-worship, pilgrimages, mirac-
ulous relics, rosaries and much more which strangely anticipates the monastic
religion."

This asceticism of the Orient began to infect Egyptian Chris-
tianity, in the second century; and in a few generations the moun-
tains and deserts of Egypt were full of Christian men who had
fled out of the sinful, dying world, to attain everlasting life. Celi-
bacy, poverty, unconditional obedience to superiors, continued medi-
tation upon the vanity of the world, the sinfulness of the flesh, the
glories of heaven and the horrors of hell, were their vows.

Athanasius wrote the life of St. Anthony, the model of the
hermits. That saint ate nothing but bread and salt and drank
nothing but water. He lived in the desert and in a tomb, drove
devils from him in the shape of a black child, was beaten once and
again by demons, wore a garment of the skin of a wild beast,
which he never changed, and never used water except for drinking.
He had been well brought up and educated; but his biographer
notes that, "for the future, his memory served him instead of
books."

St. Jerome wrote the life of the hermit saint, Paul, who lived
in a cavern where "he spent his life in prayer and solitude while
the palm trees gave him food and clothes." St. Jerome adds: "I
call Jesus and his holy angels to witness that I have seen monks,
one of whom, shut up for thirty years, lived on barley bread and
muddy water ; another in an old cistern * * * was kept alive on five
figs each day."

A philosopher asked Anthony, "How art thou content, father,
since thou hast not the comfort of books?" Quoth Anthony, "My

p2 THE MONIST.

book is the nature of created things; in it, when I choose, I can
read the words of God."

St. Hilarion was the father of monachism in Palestine. His
life was written by St. Jerome, who died a monk in Bethlehem.
From his sixteenth to his twentieth year, he lived in a tiny cabin
woven of rush and sedge; after that in a cell, four feet wide and
too low for him to stand up straight in. He lay "on the bare ground
and a layer of rushes, never washing the sack in which he was
clothed, and saying that it was superfluous to seek for cleanliness
in hair cloth. Nor did he change his tunic until the first was utterly
in rags. He knew the scriptures by heart and recited them after
his prayers and psalms." His only book when eighty years old,
seems to have been a copy of the gospels, which he had made for
his own use when young.

"Serapion, the Sindonite, was so called, because he wore
nothing but a sindon or linen shirt. Though he could not read,
he could say all the scriptures by heart."

Arsenius died, a monk, at ninety-five years of age, having wept
in his cell for forty-five years. By the standard of his times, he
had been learned in his youth, but gave up books for the monastery
and desert.

Marana and Cyra were two women saints who spent forty-two
years in a roofless cottage, "shrouded from head to foot in long
veils," * * * "and underneath their veils, burdened on every limb,
poor wretches, with such a load of iron chains and rings that a
strong man," Bishop Theodoret says, "could not have stood under
the weight." They had fasted at times for many days together.
The Bishop comments upon their holiness with rapturous admi-
ration.

St. Simeon used to fast for forty days together. He lived
for many years on the top of a high peak. The account of the
visit of his mother to him is instructive. She begged and implored
him to come out of the tower in which he was walled up, or to
admit her, but he would do neither. He heard her voice and spoke
to her, refusing to see her. The biographer says: "But she began
to say:

DID THE MONKS PRESERVE THE LATIN CLASSICS? 93

"By Christ who formed thee, if there is a probability of seeing thee
who hast been so long a stranger to me, let me see thee; or if not, let me
only hear thy voice and die at once, for thy father is dead in sorrow be-
cause of thee. And now, do not destroy me for very bitterness, my son."

Saying this, for sorrow and weeping, she fell asleep; for
during three days and three nights, she had not ceased entreating
him. Then the blessed Simeon prayed the Lord for her, and she
forthwith gave up the ghost."

Of St. Godric we are told, he was no scholar, but had gradually
learned by heart the Psalter. He was an Englishman, but as
great an ascetic as his continental brethren.

It is evident that the monks and hermits were not literary or
scientific men. They placed the narrowest interpretation on those
New Testament texts which speak of the "wisdom of this world"
as "foolishness with God," and which caution believers to "avoid
profane and vain babblings and oppositions of science falsely so
called."

When Constantine, about 325, made Christianity the State
religion, asceticism was the highest ideal of the instituted church.
Eusebius, one of his bishops, ascribed the neglect of learning among
Christians "to contempt of such useless labor," saying they pre-
ferred "turning their souls to the exercise of better things." It
was held that the Bible contained all it is necessary for man to
know, and that science is sufficiently revealed therein.

"Is it possible," says Lactantius, another father of the Church
of the same period, "that man can be so absurd as to believe that
the crops and the trees on the other side of the earth hang down-
wards and that men have their feet higher than their heads?"

The ink was hardly dry on Constantine's proclamation of
Christianity as the religion of the Empire, when a bareheaded and
black gowned priest started on foot from Constantinople for
Athens, bearing an edict which closed up at once all the government
schools of science and philosophy and abolished the salaries there-
tofore paid the professors by the Emperor.

To be a graduate of one of these schools was enough to ex-
clude a man from all employment under the Christian government.

94 THE MONIST.

Libanius, a celebrated professor of that day, complains that the
Imperial Court looked with an evil eye on the schools. "Men of
education," he said, "were driven away and ignorant upstarts pro-
moted to places of honor. Graduates in philosophy and rhetoric
found all the avenues to wealth and honor closed to them and were
glad to get a place as Emperor's messenger or to wear the livery
of household servants."

Under other edicts, the pagan temples in many parts of the
Empire were seized and turned into churches or levelled with the
ground. The fine libraries attached to them were destroyed; their
beautiful statues were overthrown, mutilated and, oftentimes,
burned for lime.

About 390, Euriapus, a learned pagan of Lydia, wrote: "Thus,
these warlike and courageous champions, after causing general ruin,
and stretching forth their hands, not stained with blood indeed, but
befouled with avarice, boasted that they had overcome the gods,
and, taking credit for their impiety and sacrilege, let loose against
the holy places the so-called monks, who were men indeed in out-
ward shape, but of swinish life and manners, who openly committed
abominations without number. * * * For any one who liked to
put a black coat upon his back, and a sour look upon his face,
could lord it like a tyrant."

Libantius, a learned professor of the same century, who had
retired from Constantinople to Antioch, thus vented his indig-
nation :

"This black -coated gentry who are more ravenous than elephants
* * * in defiance of existing laws, hurry to attack the temples, some with
staves and stones and steel, others even with fisticuffs and kicks. The
temples fall an easy prey; the roofs are stripped, the walls hurled down,
the statues dragged away, the altars overthrown. The priests must hold
their peace or die. When one is ruined they hurry to a second or a third
and pile fresh trophies in defiance of the law. Such acts of violence occur
in the cities, but far more in the country."

For more than sixty years, after the decree of Constantine,
the Serapion of Alexandria, in Egypt, had escaped destruction at
the hands of the monks. This was due to several causes. It was

DID THE MONKS PRESERVE THE LATIN CLASSICS? 95

an old institution and the pride of the city on account of its mag-
nificent architecture. It was visible over the Mediterranean as far
as the eye could reach, being placed on an eminence and towering
high in the air. Its rows of gigantic columns were of the finest
marble in the world. Long and broad marble steps led up to its
front and the equipages of rich citizens could be driven up a beau-
tiful inclined plane in the rear to the level of the temple. It was
not only a temple but a university and library. The splendors of the
religious ceremonies of the Greeks could be seen here. The uni-
versity, with its numerous professors and students, was the same
in which Euclid had produced his geometry, and the Egyptians had
perfected the astronomy of the Ptolemaic system. It was not so
prosperous as it had been, but young men still came to it from all
parts of the civilized world.

The library, too, was one of the finest. Not so large as the
one collected by the Ptolemies before the Christian era and de-
stroyed in the Bruchium, by fire, at the time of Caesar's siege ; but
it contained the collection of the King of Pergamos, which had
been presented to Cleopatra by Mark Antony, and the additions of
three centuries.

It offended the pious Theophilus, the Christian Bishop of Al-
exandria, that the Serapion, with its philosophy of Aristotle and
Plato, and its Greek ceremonial of worship should divert the at-
tention of Alexandria from Christianity. He petitioned the Em-
peror at Constantinople for leave to destroy it, and his petition was
granted.

On a spring morning in the year 389, of the Christian era,
the military formed a grand cordon around the Serapion. Then,
the Bishop and his train in the background, bareheaded and bare-
footed monks filed slowly within the Military. The population of
the city, the professors and students looked on ; the edict was read ;
the Bishop applied the torch; the building was fired in a hundred
places by the monks; and the black smoke carried to the sky the
best product of the Greek civilisation of nine centuries. When
night came, all that remained of the famous libray of Alexandria

96 THE MONIST.

was a mass of cinders; and a band of hooded monks praised God
over the ruins!

This signal triumph over paganism greatly strengthened the
power and increased the number of ascetics. Many persons aban-
doned the ordinary pursuits of life and fled to the desert monas-
teries. On those interminable expanses of white sand, where there
were no trees with waving foliage, no rivulets with crystal waters,
no birds, no flowers, nothing but sky and desolate wastes, it was
easier to think of, and hope for, the future life. On the sands of
Nitria, there arose twenty monasteries ; on their stone floors bare-
footed monks chanted prayers every hour in the day; in their
cheerless cells ascetics fasted, watched and scourged themselves
with bloody thongs.

In the twenty-six years that followed the burning of the Se-
rapion, the University of Alexandria began to re-establish itself.
Some of the professors reopened their courses; students, who had
been scattered among the schools of Asia Minor and Greece, came
again in small numbers to Alexandria. The Bruchium and Sera-
pion had been destroyed ; the Museum was now the nucleus of the
University. How many books there were, what apparatus there
was, is not known. Everything that was done for Greek philosophy,
was done in the presence of a jealous Christian patriarch whose
authority rivalled that of the Roman Governor.

In the year 415, of the Christian era, the most distinguished
professor in Alexandria was a woman. Hypatia was the daughter
of a learned mathematician and professor. In her youth she had
been sent away to school at Athens, because of the destruction of
the University at Alexandria. Her life had been spent in study, in
the best schools and among learned men. She was a mathematician
and philosopher. Heaven had endowed her with the gift of touch-
ing the human soul. Her presence was magnetic and her voice un-
sealed the founts of human feeling. She had the power which in
modern times has been wielded by Mrs. Siddons, Rachel, Angelina
Grimke, and other women. Her renown was coextensive with the
Roman empire. Her lectures on Neo-Platonism attracted the best
intellects not only of Egypt but of other countries.

DID THE MONKS PRESERVE THE LATIN CLASSICS? 97

At the time Cyril, a monk, was Bishop of Alexandria. Full
of the intolerant bigotry of his order, he determined that Hypatia
should be silenced and the Museum destroyed.

At his summons the Nitrian monasteries poured forth their
hordes. Across the sandy plains of north Egypt, thousands of
black-gowned and barefooted men with shaved heads, — men gaunt
and pale with fastings, — made their way, chanting hymns, to
Alexandria.

On their arrival they were duly organized and instructed by
the Bishop's agents. Next morning they waylaid Hypatia on the
street by which she was wont to drive to her lecture room. They
dragged her from her carriage, smote her to the earth with fists
and clubs, tore off her garments and hurried her, bleeding and
naked, through the streets to the cathedral, then up its marble steps
and through its lofty nave to the altar.

There she turned and stretched out her hands as if she would
speak; but in all that monkish crowd she met no glance of human
pity. Her voice was lost in the cries and shouts of that murderous
mob. Then her heart failed her, and sinking on her knees before
the crucifix, she prayed Christ to touch with pity the hearts of
those fanatics. But, as she prayed, the monk Peter dashed out her
brains with a club. In a moment she was hacked and torn to
pieces, and the frenzied monks went in procession through the
streets, bearing upon a spear a woman's head, whose long, fair
tresses were flecked with blood! Her death has been dramatically
described by Charles Kingsley.

After the murder the Museum was sacked and pillaged, its
pagan works destroyed and its professors silenced.

Whether the University of Alexandria recovered from this
blow, history does not tell. Nor, whether a library was again col-
lected there. This is not probable, for the patriarch was adverse
and had great power; the Roman governors took little interest in
literature or learning; and the public revenues were needed by the
Emperor. A few books probably were gathered by professors and
teachers; but when the Persians conquered Egypt in 616, there is
no sufficient evidence that there was a library at Alexandria ; and it

98 THE MONIST.

is improbable that there was one there in 630, when the Moslems
became the conquerors of the city.

What was done in Egypt was done elsewhere in the Eastern
Empire. Justinian, a Christian Emperor, gave the finishing blow
to the schools of philosophy and science, at Athens, by confiscating
their private endowments and private property and abolishing the
salaries of the teachers. Every school not under influence distinc-
tively ecclesiastical was ostracised as pagan.

One of the early popes, Gregory I., is said to have col-
lected all the ancient classics he could find at Rome and to have
made a bonfire of them ! This, in the Dark Ages was greatly to his
credit. In these latter days, however, it has been denied by some
papistical writers. ?,jir

It was not long after Gregory, that the fury of the Iconoclasts
broke out afresh. About the year 726, under the Emperor Leo, the
Isaurian, it howled like a tempest over the Christian world. The
pictures of Christ and the saints which had been placed in some of
the churches were torn down and trampled under foot; the statues
of Isis and Osiris which had been adopted as those of the Virgin
Mary and child and left in the churches, and the rude statues of the
saints, which were found here and there, were thrown from their
pedestals. A savage war of extermination was waged against the
statues of pagan gods which had survived the bigotry of several
centuries. It was "impious" to carve in stone such gods as Apollo,
Hercules, Mars and Jupiter, and such goddesses as Diana, Minerva
and Venus. Most of these statues were wholly destroyed; many
of them burned into lime. The marble statue of Jesus, erected by
Alexander Severus, in the third century, was demolished. Some
statues escaped with mutilation. The frightened owners of others,
wishing to save them for times more appreciative of art, buried them
deep under the earth or sunk them in streams. It is only a few
years since a statue of a pagan god was fished up from the bottom
of the Tiber, where it had probably lain for 1200 years. When the
mud and shells were scraped off, it was found to be not much the
worse for its long concealment.

When the tempest of iconoclasm burst forth, it is probable that

DID THE MONKS PRESERVE THE LATIN CLASSICS? 99

but few of the classics were in private hands; for, during several
centuries, it had been a dangerous thing for any one to possess them.
The Inquisition in matters of faith had a short way with men
suspected of worshipping Jupiter ; but a number of public libraries
were destroyed and among them, one at Constantinople, containing
120,000 volumes. This was the Imperial library, and its destruc-
tion was, doubtless, owing to the hatred for all learning not purely
religious. It was a sacrifice made by the Emperor to the bigotry
of the monks.

This same spirit of hostility to human learning is shown in
the acts of the Crusaders. They destroyed the libraries which had
been again collected at Constantinople; and, in 1109, made a cam-
paign against Tripoli, chiefly for the purpose of destroying the mag-
nificent Saracen library at that place. It is said to have been larger
and finer than the one at Alexandria ever was.

It is a matter of history that the Saracens had seventy large
public libraries in Spain, containing altogether more than 400,000
volumes. Two of them, those at Cordova and Granada, were at-
tached to the Moorish universities at those places. The catalogue
of one of them is said to have filled forty volumes. All these libra-
ries were nevertheless destroyed by the Roman Catholic Spaniards,
who regarded them as the literature of Satan.

But why multiply historical instances? It would require a
volume to mention them all. The "healthy literature" of the monks
consisted of homilies, lessons, missals, prayers, response books, the
writings of the fathers and a little grammar, rhetoric and history,
chiefly ecclesiastical. It was not thought consistent with a pious
life to study the classics.

Alcuin, a learned man, became a monk in the middle of the
eighth century. His monkish biographer says of him:

"This man of God had, when he was young, read the books of the ancient
philosophers and the lies of Virgil, which he did not wish now to hear or
desire that his disciples should read."

Alcuin rebuked one of his monks for reading Virgil and spoke
of the danger of being "polluted with Virgil's language."

IOO THE MONIST.

Odo, Bishop of Clugni, read one day in Virgil, but dreaming
of snakes the same night, he accepted the divine warning, renounced
Virgil and his pomps and ever afterwards sought his spiritual and
mental nourishment in the Bible.

Peter Damian (988-1072) speaks of the "vanities of earthly
science."

Honorius (1120) says:

"It grieves me when I consider the number of persons who, having lost
their senses, are not ashamed to give their utmost labor to the investigation
of the abominable figments of poets,"

He speaks of Hector, Plato, Virgil and Ovid who "are gnash-
ing their teeth in the prison of the infernal Babylon under the cruel
tyranny of Pluto."

Abelard (1142) asks:

"Why, then, do not the bishops and doctors of the Christian religion
expel from the City of God those poets whom Plato forbade to enter into
his kingdom of the world?"

Peter of Blois, Archbishop of London (1130 — 1200) up-
braided a monk for studying "the foolish old fables of Hercules
and Jove" and the lies and philosophy of the pagan authors.

In the opinion of Pope Gregory the Great it was "shameful"
that a priest should study the classics.

From the year 325 to the year 1000 of our era all aesthetic sense
seems to have fled from Western Europe. During that long period,
with the exception of a moderately good book by Boethius, a states-
man, there was not a single book produced whose literary form
makes it valuable; not a single painting which any one cared to
preserve ; not a single statue which the world has not gladly allowed
to perish. The best books were "The Fathers," those wonders of
prolixity, the best paintings resembled the figures upon cheap China
ware; and the best statues caricatured the anatomical proportions
of the human form. The books prove that their authors had never
studied the classics; the statues, that the artists had never studied
ancient sculpture.

I will now briefly notice a few of the objections to the theory
of this essay.

DID THE MONKS PRESERVE THE LATIN CLASSICS? IOI

First: That the monks were good classical scholars; hence, they
were inclined to preserve the classics.

This is not true of the monks of any age ; it is deplorably false
of those who lived in mediaeval times. It is believed that between
the beginning of Christian monasticism and the year 1 100 there was
not a single scholar of fame who had been a monk from his youth.
All of the famous writers who were monks were men who had been
in civil office ; or had been educated in the secular schools ; or had
practiced law or medicine; or taught rhetoric or oratory. To this
class belong Augustine, Jerome, Tertullian, Prudentius and Cyp-
rian. This was the case, too, in later times ; Gilbert A. Becket and
Richard de Bury had been Chancellors of England ; Peter of Blois
had studied law at Paris and Bologna ; Thomas, Abbot of Evesham,
had been a lawyer, then Professor at Oxford and Exeter ; all these
men were of middle or old age when they went into the church and
at once took high honors. An abbacy or priory was then the step-
ping stone to a bishopric. After they became churchmen most of
them denounced the classics as pagan. Such men as Wycliffe and
Roger Bacon owed no part of their education to the monasteries.

Though the churchmen generally knew a little Latin, chiefly
that of the ceremonial, they certainly knew no Greek before Boc-
caccio's time. About 1350 that poet could not find a copy of the
Iliad and Odyssey in Italy and was obliged to send to Athens for it.
It was in 1453, a little more than a hundred years after that, when
the capture of Constantinople by the Saracens sent hundreds of
educated Greeks through western Europe and made the study of
Greek more common among the learned. But this was after the in-
vention of printing.

It is doing no injustice to the monks brought up in the monas-
teries, to say that of the hundreds of thousands in their orders
during the Middle Ages there were scarcely half a dozen who
are reputed now to have been scholars. King Alfred said that,
during his reign, there was hardly a monk from the Thames to
the Channel who could go through the church service correctly.
Robertson, the Scotch historian, gives many illustrations of their
dense ignorance; and so does Hallam. The few exceptions were

IO2 THE MONIST.

such men as Theodore of Tarsus and the venerable Bede. Theodore
had been educated in the schools of Asia Minor and brought with
him to England a good library of Latin and Greek books, which he
presented to his monastery. Bede was Theodore's pupil and had
the advantage of his library. His learning would not pass muster
now-a-days.

We need no clearer proof of the character of the literature
cultivated by the mediaeval monks than the list of books which each
priest was then expected to own. These were a psalter, a book of
epistles, gospels, and hymns, a missal, a manual, a Gerim, a pas-
sional, a penitential and a lectionary. With these his library was
complete ; and he was a fortunate man who had them all.

His light reading consisted of homilies, prayers, the works of
the fathers and the legends of the saints, — many of which, it must
be admitted, will compare for imagination with the Arabian Nights
Entertainments.

Second: But it is objected that there were schools attached to the
monasteries, and that the monks must have taught the
classics.

It is true that to many of the monasteries schools were at-
tached; but these were of the kind now called parochial and were
used chiefly to train the children in the church creed and services.
They were far inferior to the secular schools, of which there were
many. From the biographies of illustrious men we learn that they
were rarely educated at monasteries. For instance Lanfranc was
taught at Pavia, Bologna and Avranche and established a famous
school at Bee. He became a monk late in life and Archbishop, but
his learning was not due to monkish teachers.

Third: A third objection is, that, in each monastery, there was a
scriptorium, or copying room, in which the monks regularly
copied the classics.

Neither of these assertions is accurate; and the second is un-
true in regard to the centuries preceding the twelfth.

In the last edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, there are
given, under the title "Abbey," thirteen ground plans of representa-

DID THE MONKS PRESERVE THE LATIN CLASSICS? IC»3

live monasteries. These show every part of the building down to
the smallest offices and out-houses; these are as follows:

1. Santa Laura, Mount Athos.

2. Coptic Monastery

3. St. Mary's Abbey, at York. )

(. Benedictine.

4. Clugny. {

5. Clairvaux, No. I.

6. Clairvaux, No. 2.

7. Citeaux.

Cistercian.

8. Kirkstall Abbey, Yorkshire.

9. Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire.

10. St. Augustine's Abbey, Bristol, Benedictine.

11. Carthusian Monastery, at Clermont.

12. Carthusian Cell, at Clermont.

The only one which shows a scriptorium is St. Gall, a Benedic-
tine monastery, erected about 820. The room devoted to the pur-
pose of copying adjoins the transept and is no longer than the sac-
risty and vestry. The St. Gall monks had more than they could do
to copy the books used by the priests in church service.

The clear inference from these facts is that, while in one out
of many monasteries, copying of some kind was systematically
done, it was not done in most of them, unless by individual monks
in their private cells. At St. Gall it was probably done under the
supervision of the Abbot and confined to religious books; in the
others copying of the same kind was done occasionally, and no
doubt, by monks, who excelled in penmanship.

Of the thirteen monasteries named only three are marked as
having "libraries," a fact extremely significant as to the want of
appreciation of literature at the time the monasteries were built.

If the monks had copied the classics, their ardent advocate,
Mr. Merryweather, would have found the proofs of it and printed
them in his curious book, Bibliomania, which is devoted chiefly to
a vindication of their literaiy character. He mentions all the monkish
copyists known and, whenever he can, every classic copied by any
of them; but he fails to produce a single instance of such copying
between the foundation of the first monastery and the year 1178. We
have to thank him for mentioning numerous donations to monas-

IO4 THE MONIST.

teries of private libraries containing classics. There is no proof,
however, that the classics so presented had been copied by monks ;
and the donations are subsequent to the tenth century.

The Benedictine order was established about the year 529 ; and
it is to its practised penmen that the Church of the Middle Ages
looked for copies of the Latin Fathers, homilies, prayers, missals,
offices, responsals, antephonals, saints' lives, legends and other
religious books. But it is not proved that those pious men copied
the classical works to any great extent, at any time, or at all prior
to the twelfth century. About the year 1178, one of their monks,
a famous penman and illuminator, copied the works of Terence,
Suetonius, Claudian and Bcethius. This is the earliest case I have
been able to find, and it stands alone in the twelfth century.

The reputation for learning enjoyed by the Benedictine order
is due to its early cultivation of religious literature, and to its
publication, since the year 1600, of histories and works of general
and scientific information. Their earliest historical work, a chron-
icle of their own order, was not published until 1609. But this
was 800 years after the dawn of Latin classical learning, 600 years
after such learning was common among literary men; and 156 years
after the capture of Constantinople and the exodus of learned
Greeks from Eastern to Western Europe. Their earliest work of
a purely literary character was not published until the eighteenth
century.

Fourth: A fourth objection is that most of the extant manuscripts

of Latin classics were found in monasteries.
Some of them were ; it is not proved that most of them were ;
and surely the manuscripts of the Greek classics were not. The
fact that the manuscripts of the Latin classics which were found in
monasteries were not found in the libraries of those institutions
shows that they were not held in honor by the monks. They were
found in cellar pits, vaults, dark holes, dirty passages, dry wells,
old towers, in many a den and dungeon. All the manuscript hunters,
from Petrarch and Boccaccio in the fourteenth century to Braccio-
lini in the fifteenth, give the same account of the places where these

DID THE MONKS PRESERVE THE LATIN CLASSICS? IC<5

valuable relics were found. They had been acquired probably for
the parchment they were written on, not for the works themselves.
In our century similar facts are reported:

Lord Prudhoe who visited a Nitrian monastery in 1828 says
that he found a pile of manuscripts in a vault into which they had
been tumbled through a trap-door. They were covered deep with
dust and had been lying there apparently for centuries.

Robert Curzon, a member of Parliament, visited one of the
Egyptian monasteries in 1833. Going into the chapel at time of
service, he saw that each barefooted monk stood upon a folio manu-
script which kept him from the cold stone floor. On further search
he found a vault full of old manuscripts in all stages of decay.

Tischendorff, the German manuscript hunter, gives a still more
graphic account of the neglect of manuscripts by the monks.

The question naturally occurs:

If the monks did not copy the classics, how are we to
account for the copies found in the libraries of the
monasteries ?

In the monastery chronicles we find frequent mention of gifts
and bequests to them of libraries by civilians. A large number of
these donations are mentioned by Merryweather in his curious book
on the subject. He tells also what they were, gives some of the
catalogues. Generally thc%re were "none but religious books; some-
times a few classics, especially after the year iioo, when liberal
studies were in fashion among the rich and great.

In 1305 there were iioo volumes in the library of the Abbey
of Ramsey. Of these there were:
70 Breviaries,
32 Grails,
29 Processionals,
i oo Psalters.

There were five Greek books and seventeen Latin. But among
the latter there was no Cicero, or Caesar, or Tacitus, or Quintilian,
or Pliny. It was clearly a miscellaneous collection, the volumes hav-
ing been donated by diffeient civilians.

IO6 THE MONIST.

In 1073 the Lord Chancellor of England presented to the
Cathedral of Exeter, of which place he was bishop, seventy vol-
umes, probably all on religious subjects. After uoo the larger gifts
of books contained one or more of the classics.

It is by these gifts, made by learned civilians and semi-secular
dignitaries of the Church, and the fact that, as a general thing, the
monasteries were respected in time of war, that in my opinion, the
finding of classics in the monasteries can be accounted for. To in-
fer that the monks copied them because they had them would be
as loose as to infer that the Venetian Senate had copied the many
valuable manuscripts found in their library, all which were either
presented or bought.

HOW, THEN, WERE THE CLASSICS PRESERVED?

During the darkest of the Dark Ages, though there were no
schools for the poor, there were some in many cities and towns for
the children of the rich. The law school established at Beyroot in
the fourth century, flourished until the conquest of the place by the
Saracens. The school established at Bologna in the fifth century
gradually developed into a university, at which about 1220 there
were ten thousand students; and in 1300, fourteen thousand. The
schools at Oxford and Cambridge grew into universities before
900 ; and in 1320 there were at Oxford 30,000 students. The school
at Paris became a university soon after the first Crusade and had
quite as many students as Oxford. Between the years 850 and
looo there were many learned men and good academies in Germany.
Before the year 1200 there were twenty-three universities in Europe,
besides the Moorish universities in Spain, which were reputed the
best of all. At all these institutions, grammar and rhetoric were
taught ; and these included a training in the Latin and more or less
instruction in the Latin classics. Greek was not taught perhaps
at any of them until after the invention of printing.

Schools of a lower order existed in all the cities and principal
towns. Guizot (History of Civilisation} gives a list of many which
existed before Charlemagne; and that monarch established a great

DID THE MONKS PRESERVE THE LATIN CLASSICS? IO7

many. A little after him and about 823 the King of Lombardy had,
by edict, opened schools in nine of the cities in his dominions.

There were famous schools in Padua, Rome, Marseilles and
Toulouse during the sixth and seventh centuries, and one at Car-
thage up to the date of the Saracen conquest.

As these schools were primarily secular, they created, each
one about itself, a demand for classical works. Around each uni-
versity there grew up again into prosperity the trades of the book-
seller and the copyist, which had become insignificant during the
reign of the monks. But these trades had at no time been extinct.
Before and after the conquest of Rome by the Goths, there had
been booksellers, stationers, antiquarians, copyists and illuminators.
All these are spoken of by Cassiodorus a little after 500 ; by Isidor,
about 600; and by Benedict, of Wearmouth, about 690; he visited
the Continent five times to buy books. About 990, Gerbert, who
afterwards became Pope Sylvester II., and who was a graduate of
the Moorish university at Cordova, in Spain, and passed for a
sorcerer because of his learning, wrote to a friend at Rome to pro-
cure him a copy of a book which, he said, could be had of some of
the copyists, who, he adds, "may be found in all parts of Italy."
In 1170, Peter of Blois, who had collected a good library, speaks
of his buying from "public dealers in books," and gives an amusing
account of his buying from a bookseller at Paris a book which he
left at the store and which was taken off by force, by an eminent
dignitary who was eager to have the volume.

In 1287 De Bury mentions having bought manuscripts from
booksellers at Antwerp, Brabant, and Paris, and other cities in
Europe.

About the same time, Dante was studying at Padua and Bo-
logna where the students were supplied with books by dealers who
employed professional copyists.

The booksellers were so important a class to the students in
ic university towns that the universities generally obtained legis-
itive authority over them and subjected them to many rules. At
'aris the price of books was fixed by the faculty; and the dealers
were compelled to let books for hire at fixed rates to the students.

IO8 THE MONIST.

The prices and rates were quite low, not much higher indeed than
those of a circulating library of our own days.

As the academies and universities, manuscript dealers, anti-
quarians, copyists and illuminators had co-existed for more than
five centuries before the invention of printing; as the greater num-
ber of existing ancient manuscripts have been found not in the mon-
asteries, but in the library of the Venetian Senate, to which Pet-
rarch bequeathed all his books; in the library of Florence, built up
principally by Lorenzo and Cosmo de Medici; in the library of
Oxford, to which Wyclift'e and Roger Bacon, each, left his collec-
tion ; in that of the Vatican, the books of which were bought after
the Middle Ages, by Nicholas IV. and Leo X., wherever they could
find them; in the royal library of Paris, made up by the Govern-
ment; and in other libraries of secular character; as there is no
positive proof that, prior to the year 1178, a monk ever copied a
classical book, and many facts making such copying highly im-
probable ; as the classical books found, in the monasteries are all
easily accounted for by known donations by civilians and acquisi-
tions made since the revival of classical learning; and as it was, in
the language of one of the popes, Gregory, "a shameful thing that
it should be said of a priest, that the praises of Jupiter and the
praises of Christ should issue from the same mouth"; in other
words, that a priest should study or teach the classics ; is it unjust
to deny to the monks what is now claimed for them by some Roman
Catholic writers, the honor of having preserved those masterpieces ?

WILLIAM BIRNEY. ,,
WASHINGTON, D. C.

ICELANDIC LITERATURE.

TN his condensed compendium of mediaeval and modern Ice-
•*- landic literature, Dr. Finnr Jonsson admits that the Icelandic
people have at no time displayed any marked tendency toward
philosophical thought. This is also a widely accepted estimate
among well-informed circles of the European continent, and it
cannot be denied that the native historians of our national litera-
ture still neglect a series of important problems, among them the
ethnological research of the prehistoric heterogeneous elements that
have contributed to impart such a quaint and different aspect to
the- literature of Iceland. It seems sufficient to the native critics
that Iceland's literary records will forever exert an irresistible fas-
cination upon the modern nations, and that Icelandic literature in
our day should have become one of the best exploited literatures of
Europe.

As regards the heterogeneous origin of old Icelandic records,
it is to be regretted that modern ethnologists, and above all the
Icelanders themselves, should have done so little to have cleared
up the remote prehistoric contact which must have taken place
between Teutonic-Scandinavian tribes and the Finns, — men be-
longing to, perhaps, the highest type of the old Finno-Altaic race.
The "hersirs" and tribal chiefs of Norway until the days of
Harold Fairhair are admitted by several modern ethnologists to
have been to a considerable extent "Norwegianised" or "Teuton-
ised" Finns, who at the time still preserved several traits of their
Asiatic-Tartar origin; and that these were the foremost emi-
grants to Iceland at the close of the ninth century of our era.
The mythological and heroical traditions which these Norwegian-

IIO THE MONIST.

ised Finns brought with them to Iceland, point to racial traditions
which do not exhibit marked Teutonic elements. It is creditable
to Iceland that many of these weird racial traditions have been
preserved, but it was to be expected that at a later time they should
be misunderstood and greatly distorted, particularly by the cler-
ical Celtic-Icelandic scribes. The best preserved mythical and
prehistoric sagas were those handed down orally by the popular
saga-men for the entertainment of young and old, concerning
old-time battles fought far inland in the East of Europe, — weird
sagas, rude in form and contents, about kings and heroes, very
unlike the Scandinavian kings and warriors of a later saga-time,
— about mysterious potentates like King "GuSmundr a Glsesis-
vollum" — King Gudmund of Splendid Plains — by which may have
been meant the inland steppes to the southwest of the Ural moun-
tains. Even the old Eddie lays, for which there is still lacking any
satisfactory ethnological and critical interpretation, may have
been evenly divided between Tartar and Teuton. It is certain that
the contents and purport of the huge collection known under the
title of "Antiquites russes," edited at Copenhagen by the noted
Danish antiquarian, Professor Rafn, must read like an unintel-
ligible riddle to modern Icelanders and Scandinavians; and yet,
it recalls to mind a recent incident at a session of the Icelandic
"Althing" or Parliament. A member of the assembly was heard
to encourage modern Finnish immigration as a desirable offset to
the injury which American emigration was causing to the Ice-
landers.

This was an admission of a remote racial affinity, and, in fact,
many Icelanders and Scandinavians may apply to themselves the
recurring refrain addressed to Ottar in a lay in the afore-men-
tioned collection — "Antiquites russes" :

"Alt er paS aett pin,
Ottarr hinn heimski!"

"It is all your family,
Oh thou foolish Ottar!"

In mediaeval Iceland there were no cities or villages proper.
The leaders of the immigrant families, whether Norwegian Finns,

ICELANDIC LITERATURE. Ill

pure Teutons, or Norse-Celtic immigrants from the British isles,
had settled widely apart on the banks of fjords, along inland val-
leys, in every available locality. Each had imported their own
peculiar traditions and independent saga circles, and for a time
led their own lives without very close ties of solidarity between
the several ethnic groups. But our modern world has not an ade-
quate idea of the astonishing literary activity, which, during the
following centuries, must have reigned in the then wealthy homes
of Iceland, at the respective Episcopal Sees of Holar and Skal-
holt, in the famous school of Oddi, and in all the convents of the
Island. The surprising wealth of manuscripts still existing in
the Island in the centuries following upon the reformation forms
a rich legacy bequeathed by Iceland to the world at large. The
"Habent fata sua libelli" applies to the providential preservation of
all these Icelandic manuscripts. While Icelandic annals relate the
plundering of the treasures of Icelandic Episcopal Sees by the Teu-
tonic reformers, it seems that the latter attributed little value to
any kind of manuscripts. In Iceland, however, these accumulated
literary treasures would have been lost to the world had not the
patriotic Icelander Arni Magmisson conceived the idea of export-
ing the entire collection en bloc to Copenhagen, Denmark. In
this connection we have to bear in mind the utter oblivion, ne-
glect, and decay into which Iceland had sunk under the semi-bar-
baric government during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
At Copenhagen, however, fortunately there happened at the time
to be found noble-minded, far-sighted Danes, — men like Luxdorph,
A. Suhm, Schoning, Engelstoft, the native Icelander and Danish
Premier Jon Eriksson, and others.

To the intelligent initiative of all these men mediaeval Ice-
landic literature owes its first introduction to the European world
in a series of splendid editions of the Eddie lore and of the most
important saga texts, the expense of which was liberally defrayed
by the Danish monarchs themselves, and this ought also to be con-
sidered as the first genuine step taken toward a national Icelandic
literary revival. The Icelander of the early saga period remained

112 THE MONIST.

still a man of action, who merely had exchanged the sword for the
pen. Whether "Skald" or "raconteur" saga man, he was prompted
either by family pride, or inspired by events leading to the triumph
or defeat of some party, but during the golden period of Icelandic
literature, from Ari Thorgilson down to the historians of the
thirteenth century, the literature has been changed essentially both
in form and in utterance under the Celtic, clerical culture of the
times. The brilliant historian Snorri Sturluson and his contempo-
rary historians, several of them the inmates of Icelandic convents,
belonged to this classical school. It is the only period in which
Icelandic literature displays something of inward continuity and
of philosophical thinking. All of the writers of this period, in
style and utterance, aimed at the "Romanisation" of the old Norse
language. They even applied it to several older saga texts; but,
not by any means, so intelligently to the mythical saga lore; yet,
here I do not expressly allude to either the young or old Eddie
texts. The Romanisation, however, put its stamp upon some of
the old family sagas, such as the "Nial's Saga," — regarded by
critics as a prominent type of a racy Icelandic saga. The dialogue,
for example, between Flosi and his relation Hildigunnr reads like
any creditable specimen of impassioned Roman rhetoric. This
classical tendency may be said to have advanced one step further
in the charming "Biskupa-Sogur" or lives of Icelandic bishops be-
fore the Reformation. These "Biskupa-Sogur," by their style and
language, read like highly attractive modern biographies. The
modern natives shrink from the apparently naive faith which in-
spired the mediaeval works, like the "Biskupa Sogur," or religious
poems, as the strenuous poem "Lilja," by the monk Eystein As-
grimsson; but the Icelanders are apt to forget that, besides naive
faith, those works are also inspired by the same lofty aspirations
which prompted the deeper modern thinkers to recognise the in-
born ethical cravings of mankind as high above any worldly wise
logical ideas. For the rest, at a later period of uncommon national
distress — the "VoloeSis" period of the seventeenth century — the
broken-hearted, contrite Icelandic people, although nominally

ICELANDIC LITERATURE. 113

Lutherans, returned to that early fountain-head of naive Icelandic
faith; from an analogous source, likewise, was inspired the great
seventeenth century psalmist, Hallgrim Petursson, and others who
sought for spiritual strength and faith in the destinies of the Ice-
landic people.

As regards the existence and intrinsic value of modern Ice-
landic literature, foreigners need no longer abide by the efforts of
native Icelandic writers, but may be referred to men and women
of different European nationalities who have made the Icelandic
language and literature a favorite object of study. Of those re-
siding in Germany I shall here mention only the names of M. Phil.
Carl Kiichler, Fraulein M. Lehmann Filhes of Berlin, and, above
all, Poestion, the distinguished Vienna librarian and worthy trans-
lator, critic, and historian of modern Icelandic literature. Modern
Icelandic literature in our own day still may produce the impres-
sion of a series of unequal, incomplete efforts devoid of continuity
and originality, except, perhaps, in its short story and lyrical
poetry. But we should remember that there had to be performed
a long and arduous preliminary work, mainly philological and
linguistic, before there could be any modern national literature.

Until nearly the middle of the nineteenth century none but
Icelandic students at Copenhagen were available for the work of
reading, correcting, and translating the manuscripts which Arni
Magnusson had given the Royal Library at Copenhagen. And
this, at a time when in Iceland the native language had practic-
ally ceased to exist, or to be the official medium for transacting
public business. An abominable Danish - Icelandic jargon was
largely spoken by the upper classes. A practical Icelandic gram-
mar did not exist in Iceland until the well-known Danish linguist
Rasmus Rask introduced his own short Icelandic grammar in the
early decades of the nineteenth century. A few years later the
Icelanders also formally date their modern literary revival from the
foundation of the review Fjolnir at Copenhagen, by a group of
gifted and patriotic natives. The articles of the Fjolnir, in a short
time, seem to have revolutionised both the spoken and written Ian-

114 THE MONIST.

guage of Iceland. I here refrain from entering into details, but
again refer the reader to Poestion's work, or to Dr. V. GuSmunds-
son's Danish treatise, Island's Kultur ved Aarhundredskiftet,
1900, tranlated into German by R. Pallaske. The old literature of
Iceland, in a multitude of aspects, and in its highest classical form,
was mainly the outcome of Celtic-Icelandic genius, and of the
classical Christian culture of the time.

In the present literary stagnation and even widespread indiffer-
ence to past literary traditions which is said to prevail in Iceland,
it is well to recall to mind that of the 20,000 emigrants, who in
late years have settled in America, the majority probably has been
made up of Icelanders of Celtic descent. The American-Icelandic
Press of Winnipeg, Manitoba, occasionally keeps reminding Ice-
land of this fact. Some of the quaint poems of the Icelandic-
American poet Stephan G. Stephansson, in rather drastic language,
seem to express the genuine sentiments of a self-confessed modern
Icelandic Celt. The Iceland of to-day, according to this writer, is
only a sort of "Teutonised" Iceland, dull, realistic, and utilitarian;
and apparently he is not "in touch" with the time-serving faction
of Dano-Icelandic chauvinists, who affect to seek an imagined
center of intellectual, political, and racial solidarity in the medi-
aeval literature of Iceland. But on the other hand it is only too
true that modern Iceland is actually confronted by a number of
perplexing and difficult, political and economical problems; and
for the satisfactory solution of these we devoutly trust that Jove
will grant to the long-abiding island all the required life through
the ages.

A. HOGNI GUNLOGSEN.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF RESUR-
RECTION.

JAMES S. RIGGS, D.D., and Professor at the Auburn Theolog-
ical Seminary, expresses in a recent number of the Biblical
World his conviction that the Easter message of the resurrection of
Christ is an indispensable part of Christianity which should not be
surrendered to the demands made by the Zeitgeist. A distinction
has been made between the Easter message (viz., a belief in the
bodily resurrection of the Christ) and the Easter faith (viz., a belief
in the immortality of the soul) and the Zeitgeist urges us "to accept
the latter, but to reject the former as impossible in view of modern
enlightenment. In other words, an actual resurrection as the church
has commonly understood it did not take place, and yet Jesus lives."

It is true, as Professor Riggs states, that "the immortality of the
soul is not a scriptural expression," it is a modern invention. The
Gospels believe in "a resurrection of man, body and soul." Re-
demption includes the whole man. To strike out therefore that side
of the truth which shows that the body as well as the spirit is to
enter into the true conception of complete immortality, is to miss the
real climax of all the teachings of the Scriptures regarding the
future of man. Jesus "brought to light this wondrous completeness
by coming himself from the grave the fact of the resur-
rection, therefore, is of the most importance." *

It is quite true that according to the early Christians "the
Easter message belongs with the Easter faith." The question is
only whether we can still believe it. Professor Riggs sees no diffi-

* See Acts xvii. 32 ; I Corinthians xv. 3, 14, 20.

Il6 THE MONIST.

culty; he claims that the "vision theory runs up against stubborn,
inexplicable obstacles." Considering all the evidence he says "the
empty grave is most satisfactorily explained by the actual resurrec-
tion of Jesus," and he argues that it is better to let "the faith of the
disciples rest upon the fact of the resurrection than upon God-in-
spired visions given to create belief in a fact which after all was not
a fact." In the opinion of Professor Riggs, "the surety of the fact"
is sufficiently vouched for by historical evidence and the value that it
possesses for us cannot be underrated by any Christian believer.

No doubt Professor Riggs voices the opinion of the orthodox
traditional conception of Christianity, which believes not so much in
the immortality of the soul as in the resurrection of the flesh, but a
new interpretation of the Christian faith is preparing itself in the
minds of the people, and we regard it as most significant that a repre-
sentative of the more liberal view rises in the person of the scholarly
Canon of Westminster, one of the most distinguished clergymen of
the Church of England.

Canon Hensley Henson's article on "The Resurrection of Jesus
Christ" has created a stir in the religious world because the Canon
openly expresses his conviction that a belief in the bodily resurrec-
tion of Christ is not essential to true Christianity. He knows very
well and grants that in the days of early Christianity the belief in
bodily resurrection was regarded as the most important part of the
faith. Further, Paul says: "If Christ has not been raised then is
our preaching vain, your faith is also vain." But the belief in a
bodily resurrection is only evidence of the materialism of the early
Christians who could not conceive the truth of immortality other-
wise than in the form of a resurrection of the dead body. The
Canon is fully informed of the arguments which theological scholars
adduce in favor of the resurrection of the body of Christ, but he has
also carefully investigated the reports of Biblical criticism, and he
comes to the conclusion that it cannot be set aside lightly or easily.
He says:*

"The candid Christian, we say, when reading these statements

* The Hibbert Journal for April, 1904, pp. 476-493.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF RESURRECTION. 117

cannot escape the inference that the evidence for the quasi-historical
statements of the Creed is of a highly complicated, dubious, and
even contradictory character."

He further says of historical criticism, the youngest of the sci-
ences, that "it cannot claim even such a measure of recognition as
that which the older sciences have succeeded in wresting from the
Christian Church ; but the analogy between the course of events by
which the conclusion of astronomy, geology, and biology have, one
after the other, been, so to say, domesticated within the theological
sphere, and the course of events by which the conclusions of his-
torical criticism must undergo the same process, is, at every point,
complete."

St. Paul himself, though he insists on the fact that Christ has
been "raised from the dead," repudiates at the same time a material-
istic conception of the resurrection, and Canon Henson adds :

"The dissolution of the physical body in the grave will not, we
are assured, hinder the process of resurrection in the case of Christ's
disciples."

Therefore the Canon concludes that a physical resurrection can-
not be an essential part of the Christian faith. "The emptiness of
the sepulchre might conceivably be as little worthy of credence as the
materialistic details in St. Matthew xviii. 9 and St. Luke xxiv,
36 ff.*" Quoting Bishop Westcott, the Canon proposes to replace the
words "the Lord was raised" in the apostolic conception of the resur-
rection by the words "the Lord lives," and the real proof of the
resurrection should be found in the fact that Christ lives and works
still.

Canon Henson's article is a remarkable evidence that the world
moves. If he, the Canon of Westminster, can, without being excom-
municated, make this statement which we ourselves proposed a few
years ago as the only possible solution of the essential doctrine of
Christianity, we see the time near at hand when the philosophy of
The Open Court will be regarded as good Christian doctrine, ortho-
dox not from the standpoint of the traditional conception of dogma-

*Cf. Acts x. 41.

Il8 THE MONIST.

tism, but in the sense of being a doctrine that is tenable before the tri-
bunal of science which is true orthodoxy, for it is Tightness of doc-
trine; it is doctrine that is universally acceptable, and therefore
genuinely catholic.

There are heroes in battle and there are also heroes in the
domain of thought, and we do not underrate the courage of Canon
Henson to scorn all equivocation and make his statement boldly and
plainly, risking the enmity of the narrow-minded whose number is
legion and the alienation of many of his friends and co-religionists.

The belief in immortality is the crucial point of Christianity.
Formulated as the doctrine of resurrection it embodies it in a quasi -
allegorical form, but we ought to bear in mind that the Gospel stories
of Christ's rising from the dead and his ascent into heaven are later
additions which were not part of the original Gospel, and we ought
to understand that they are true in an allegorical sense. They reflect
the truth of immortality. It may not be out of place to reprint here
the passage of a former article of ours which was the subject of
Canon Henson's discussion :

"Considering the sanctity that was attributed to Sunday among
the Gentiles, especially the disciples and similar sects, it was nat-
ural that Easter Day, the festival of Resurrection, should have been
celebrated on the first Sunday after the Passover.

"The burden of the Christian Gospel as preached by St. Paul
is the message of the resurrection of Christ, in which the apostles
implicitly believed. Whatever we may think of the accounts of it
in the New Testament we must grant that the doctrine of immor-
tality is the quintessence of the Christian religion, which was the
cause of its final triumph. The oldest account in the Gospel ac-
cording to Mark makes the simple statement that the grave was
found empty, and this suggested at once to his followers the idea
tliat Jesus must have risen from the dead. The immediate result
was visions of the departed master. He was seen by Mary Mag-
dalene, by St. Peter, by the eleven apostles, then by more than three
hundred brethren, and finally by St. Paul.

"One of these visions (that of St. Paul) lies within the pale of
historical investigation, and, in spite of the contradictions discov-

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF RESURRECTION. 119

ered in the several versions of the event, offers nothing that seems
improbable or inexplicable.

"The history of the Gospel stories of the resurrection has been
traced by the higher critics, and we may briefly state that later re-
ports, superadded to the original account in Mark of the empty
grave, show the spirit in which the early Christians regarded the
idea of Christ's resurrection. Paul's Christ is a spiritual presence,
while the Christ of a later writer, hankering after a corporeal im-
mortality, is a bodily presence who makes doubters touch him and
parades his corporeality by eating in the presence of witnesses.
Finally he is reported to have departed from the earth by ascending
to heaven.

"Perhaps the most beautiful conception of the risen Christ (in-
comparably nobler than the crude materialistic notion of a corporeal
resurrection) is reflected in the tale of the disciples of Emmaus,
where Christ, the departed master, speaks out of the mouth of a
stranger whom they meet on the way and with whom they break
bread together. They knew him not until he was gone. And how
did they know him? His words were the words of Jesus, and the
way in which he. broke bread and spoke the blessing reminded them
of their beloved master. Who will deny that in this sense Christ
has proved a living presence ever since and is still so even unto the
generations of these latter days ?"

EDITOR.

AN ANCIENT MOSLEM ACCOUNT OF
CHRISTIANITY.

ABU-'L-FATH' MUH'AMMAD, a Persian author of the twelfth
century, in a book on religious sects and philosophers, de-
scribes the Nazarenes, or, as we would say, the Christians, in the
following terms :*

"They are the Church of the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary.
He is the true messenger after Moses, who is promised in the law,
and he accomplished manifest signs and splendid miracles, such as
raising the dead, healing the blind and the leprous ; and his existence
and very nature were a perfect wonder to [attest] his genuineness :
viz., his origin without initial drops of seed, and his wise discourses
without any previous instruction. Whereas, with all the prophets
inspiration reached its completion in the fortieth year, he was already
inspired to speak in the cradle, and the completion of inspiration
took place in his thirtieth year; and the time of his calling lasted
three years, three months and three days.

"Then, after he was taken up into heaven, the apostles and others
were of different opinion concerning him. But the opinion differed
upon two points only : Firstly, how he had come down and united
himself with his mother, and how the Word became flesh ; secondly,
how he had ascended up and united himself with the angels, and
how the divided Word existed. As to the first point, they held that
the Word became flesh, and they had a [manifold] view upon the

* Translated from the German of Abul-'l-Fath' Muh'ammad asch-Schah-
rastani's Religionspartheien und Philosophen-Schulen. Zum ersten Male voll-
standig aus dem Arabischen iibersetzt. Von Theodor Haarbruecker. Halle:
1850-1851, 2 vols.

AN ANCIENT MOSLEM ACCOUNT OF CHRISTIANITY. 121

manner of the union and the incarnation, brought into a system.
Some said that he enlightened his body, as light enlightens trans-
parent bodies; others, that he was imprinted into it, as the impress
of the seal into wax; others, that he appeared in it, as the spiritual
appears in the corporeal; others, that he clothed the Godhead with
the manhood as with a coat of mail.

"Lastly, others believe that the Word was mingled with the body
of the Messiah, as milk is mingled with water. They hold that there
are three persons in God. They say the Creator is one substance,
whereby they understand his existence by himself alone, not the
inclusion of space and comprehensibility (Greifbarkeit) . And it is
one in substantiality, but three in personality; and by three persons
they understand the attributes, such as existence, life and knowledge,
the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost; and only the knowledge
has put on the body as a coat of mail, not the three remaining per-
sons.

"As regards his Ascension, they maintain that he died and was
crucified; the Jews put him to death out of envy and malice and
knowledge of his prophetic calling and dignity. Death, however,
extended not to the divine part, but only to the human.

"They say that the perfection of the human personality consists
in three things : the prophetic office, the imamhood, and the Lord-
ship. The other prophets had these three distinctions or one of
them as attributes, but the rank of the Messiah is a higher one, in
that he is the only Son, and no one is like him, and between him
and the other prophets no analogy is possible; and he is the one
through whom the sin of Adam is atoned for, and who will judge
the creation.*

"As to his second coming, however, they are likewise of different
views. Some say that he will come down before the Resurrection
day, as the disciples of Islam maintain ; others think that he will only
come down at the day of judgment. However, he came down after
he was dead and crucified, and Simon Peter saw him, and he [Jesus]
spake with him and transmitted to him the power. Then he left the

* Die Schopfung richten werde.

122 THE MONIST.

world and ascended into heaven, and Simon Peter was his vicar, and
was the foremost of the Apostles in whatever related to knowledge,
piety and culture ; only that Paul disturbed his work and made him-
self his colleague, and confused the foundations of his knowledge
and mixed it with the Kalam (i. e. view) of the philosophers and
the insinuations of his thought.

"I have seen an epistle from Paul, which he wrote to the Greeks,
wherein it is stated :

" 'Ye believe that the position (Stellung) of Jesus is like that
of the other prophets, but it is not so, but he is only to be likened
unto Melchisedek, king of Salem, to whom Abraham gave tithes, so
that he blessed him and laid his hand upon his head.* Wonderful is
it, to wit, what is delivered in the Gospels, that God said: Thou
art mine only son — as if he who is the only one could be likened
unto other human beings !'

"But there are four of the Apostles who agree together, and
one of them made a compilation (Zusammensttelhmg) of the Gospel.
They are Matthew, Luke, Mark and John. The close of the Gospel
of Matthew reads that he said: T send you to the nations, as my
Father sent me unto you. Go and call the nations in the name oi
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. 'f

"The beginning of the Gospel of John is : 'In the beginningless
eternity was the Word, and this Word was with God, and God was
the Word, and all is made by his hand.'

"Later the Christians divided themselves into seventy-two sects,
and the chief sects are three : the Melchians, the Nestorians and the
Jacobites. From them went forth the Julianists, the [Basilians?]
the Macedonians, disciples of Macedonius ; the disciples of Sabellius,

of Photinus, of Paul of Samosata, and several more."

* * *

The statement that Jesus appeared especially to Peter after the

*The words in italics are in Hebrews vii. 1-3, but the whole text is
either quoted loosely from memory, or else from some lost epistle of Paul to
the Greeks. The former is more likely, for what follows is probably a
reminiscence of Heb. i. 5.

t A confused quotation from John xx. 21 and Matthew xxviii. 19.

AN ANCIENT MOSLEM ACCOUNT OF CHRISTIANITY. 123

resurrection and transmitted to him the power has been supposed
by Rohrbach, in his monograph on the lost Mark-ending, to be based
upon that lost ending or upon some document derived from it. Mark
is Peter's Gospel, and often contains details omitted by Luke and
Matthew; and yet the apparition to Peter mentioned by Luke and
Paul (Luke xxiv. 34; I Cor. xv. 5) and intimated by the extant
Mark (xvi. 7) does not appear in the present ending of that Gospel.
A tenth-century Armenian MS. found by Conybeare ascribes the
present ending to Aristion, a second-century writer; and this,
coupled with its absence in the oldest extant Greek manuscripts and
in ancient ones known to Eusebius and Jerome in the fourth cen-
tury, have forced upon us the conviction that it has been added to
supplant the genuine ending. Mary had evidently written some-
thing which was disapproved of by the Church, and Rohrbach's
monograph exhaustively discusses this question. There is one point,
however, which the German scholar overlooks. We know from
Irenseus that Mark, in the second century, was alleged by the Docet-
ists in favor of their doctrine that Jesus the man suffered, while
Christ, the divine principle, remained impassive (Iren. Haer. iii.
8:7). One is strongly tempted to conjecture that Peter's original
account of the resurrection was simply that of a vision or apparition,
such as the one that appeared to Saul on the Damascus road, and
which Saul himself, in the text from Corinthians quoted, collocated
with the undetailed appearance to Peter. When I mentioned this con-
jecture to Rendel Harris in 1900, he seemed to approve of it, and
said : "Yes ! His body was phantasmal." To have allowed such an
account to stand in the New Testament, when the Docetists were
becoming a dangerous party in the Church, would have given them
too much hold. Peter's narrative of his experience was therefore
suppressed, and only lingered in apocryphal tradition. As the
Mohammedans always quoted certain apocryphal Gospel stories on
a footing with the Canonical ones, our Persian author may have
gotten his statement from such a source. He can hardly have taken
it from Clement of Alexandria's lost Institutions (ap. Eusebius H.
E. ii., i), for that work put Peter on the same footing with James
and John, and taught that all three of them received the gnosis from
the risen Lord. It is strongly probable, therefore, that there was
once a Gospel narrative telling about a special appearance to Peter,
and the celebrated charge to Peter, now misplaced in the Gospel of
Matthew, was a likely portion thereof.

PHILADELPHIA, PA. A. J. EDMUNDS.

INFINITUDE AS A PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM.

PROFESSOR C. J. KEYSER'S VIEW WITH EDITORIAL COMMENTS.

PROF. CASSIUS JACKSON KEYSER, a mathematician of
Columbia University, well versed in the philosophy of mathe-
matics, especially in its more recent development since the appear-
ance of Riemann's famous Habilitationsschrift, has published in The
Hibbert Journal an article on "The Axiom of Infinity," which he
criticises in its role of "a new presupposition of thought." He says :

"For thousands of years philosophy has recognised the pres-
ence of a certain definite problem, namely, that of extending the
dominion of logic, the reign of exact thought, out beyond the utmost
reach of finite things into and over the realm of infinite being, and
this problem, by far the greatest and most impressive of her strictly
intellectual concernments, philosophy has, for thousands of years,
arduously striven to solve. And now I ask — not, has it been worth
while? for that is conceded, but — has she advanced the solution in
any measure, and, if so, in what respect, and to what extent?"

Professor Keyser, continuing, says that "thanks to the subtle
genius of the modern Teutonic mind, this ancient problem, having
baffled the thought of all the centuries, has at last been completely
solved." He then refers to Riemann, Bolzano, Dedekind and Cantor.
The first mentioned mathematician distinguishes clearly between
boundlessness and infinitude, and Professor Keyser selects for the
purpose of his discussion the following definition of "that august
term" :

"An assemblage (ensemble, collection, group, manifold) of ele-
ments (things, no matter what} is infinite or finite according as it

INFINITUDE AS A PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM. 125

has or has not a PART to which the whole is just EQUIVALENT in the
sense that between the elements composing that part and those com-
posing the whole there subsists a unique and reciprocal (one-to-one}
correspondence."

For a distinction of the notions of finite and infinite he quotes
the mathematical theologian Bolzano, saying :

"Bolzano's procedure is virtually as follows: Suppose given
a class C of elements, or things, of any kind whatsoever, as the sands
of the seashore, or the stars of the firmament, or the points of space,
or the instants in a stretch of time, or the numbers with which we
count, or the total manifold of truths known to an omniscient God.
Out of any such class C, suppose a series formed by taking for first
term one of the elements of C, for second term two of them, and so
on. Any term so obtainable is itself obviously a class or group of
things, and is defined to be finite. The indicated process of series
formation, if sufficiently prolonged, will either exhaust C or it will
not. If it will, C is itself demonstrably finite; if it will not, C is, on
that account, defined to be infinite. Now, say Professor Royce and
others, a definition like the latter, being dependent on such a notion
as that of inexhaustibility or endlessness or boundlessness, is nega-
tive ; a certain innate craving of the understanding remains unsatis-
fied, we are told, because the definition presents the notion, not in
a positive way by telling us what the infinite actually is, but merely
in a negative fashion by telling us what it is not.

"Undoubtedly the claim is plausible, but is it more? Bolzano
affirmed and exemplified a certain proposition, in itself of the utmost
importance, and throwing half the needed light upon the question in
hand. That proposition is: Any class or assemblage (of elements),
if infinite according to his own definition of the term, enjoys the
property of being equivalent, in the sense above explained, to some
proper part of itself. Though he did not himself demonstrate the
proposition, it readily admits of demonstration, and, since his time,
has in fact been repeatedly and rigorously proved. Not only that,
but the converse proposition, giving the other half of the needed
light, has been established too: Every assemblage that HAS a part
'equivalent' to the whole, is infinite in the Bolzano sense of the term.

126 THE MONIST.

"I turn now to the current assertion by Professor Royce and
Mr. Russell, that the modern concept of the infinite, of which I have
given above in italics an exact statement, to which the reader is re-
ferred, in fact denies a certain ancient axiom of common sense,
namely, the axiom of whole and part.

"The question is whether it is possible, by means of the new
concept, to demonstrate the existence of the infinite; whether, in
other words, it can be proved that there are infinite systems. That
such demonstration is possible is affirmed by Bolanzo, by Dedekind,
by Professor Royce, by Mr. Russell, and in fact by a large and swell-
ing chorus of authoritative utterance, scarcely relieved by a dissent-
ing voice. After no little pondering of the matter, I have been
forced, and that, too, I must own, against my hope and will, to the
opposite conviction. Candor, then, compels me to assert, as I have
elsewhere briefly done, not only that the arguments which have been
actually adduced are all of them vitiated by circularity, but that, in
the very nature of conception and inference, by virtue of the most
certain standards of logic itself, every potential argument, every
possible attempt to prove the proposition, is foredoomed to failure,
destined before its birth to take the fatal figure of the wheel.

"The upshot, then, is this : that conception and logical inference
alike presuppose absolute certainty that an act which the mind finds
itself capable of performing is intrinsically performable endlessly, or,
what is the same thing, that the assemblage of possible repetitions
of a once mentally performable act is equivalent to some proper part
of the assemblage. This certainty I name the Axiom of Infinity, and
this axiom being, as seen, a necessary presupposition of both concep-
tion and deductive inference, every attempt to 'demonstrate' the ex-
istence of the infinite is a predestined begging of the issue.

"What follows? Do we, then, know by axiom that the infinite
is? That depends upon your metaphysic. If you are a radical
o-priorist, yes; if not, no. If the latter, and I am now speaking as
an a-priorist, then you are agnostic in the deepest sense, being capa-
ble, in utmost rigor of the terms, of neither conceiving nor infer-
ring. But if we do not know the axiom to be true, and so cannot
deductively prove the existence of the infinite, what, then, is the

INFINITUDE AS A PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM. 127

probability of such existence? The highest yet attained. Why?
Because the inductive test of the axiom, regarded now as a hypoth-
esis, is trying to conceive and trying to infer, and this experiment,
which has been world-wide for aeons, has seemed to succeed in count-
less cases, and to fail in none not explainable on grounds consistent
with the retention of the hypothesis.

"Finally, to make briefest application to a single concrete case.
Do the stars constitute an infinite multitude ? No one knows. If the
number be finite, that fact may some time be ascertained by actual
enumeration, and, if and only if there be infinite ensembles of pos-
sible repetitions of mental processes, it may also be known by proof.
But if the multitude of stars be infinite, that can never be known
except by proof ; this last is possible only if the axiom of infinity be
true, and even if this be true, the actual proof may never be
achieved."

We agree with Professor Keyser when he expresses his convic-
tion that the existence of the infinite cannot be proved, but we ven-
ture to supplement this brief statement of his views by the following
suggestions: By infinite we understand a process which is to be
carried on incessantly. If we think of a mathematical straight line
as being produced without limits, we call it infinite. Should we ever
try to draw on, even if it were done only in thought, we should soon
find out that our line is always of a definite length and never truly
infinite, for we would need an infinite time to complete the task.
The rigor of logic forces us to admit that infinitude is a process in
action, but not a concrete and ready thing. Whether the number of
stars or the grains of sand on the seashore are infinite or not is a
question which can never be decided by experiment, but if our logical
laws hold good, and if they possess any value at all, we must admit
that (if our existence were widened into a divine omniscience and
omnipotence) we could most easily count the grains of sand on our
planet (assuming that there is no quibbling about their size as to
which ones are mere dust, being too small to be counted) and we
could with no less facility determine the number of stars that
course within the range of our milky system (provided again that
no doubt exists as to which celestial bodies should be regarded as

128 THE MONIST.

stars and which as mere meteorites or stellar dust) ; for anything
that is concrete must be definite and anything that is infinite can
never be a concrete thing, but must be a process in progress.

This appears to amount to a negation of the existence of infinity ;
and perhaps it does, at least in the opinion of those metaphysical
philosophers who identify the term reality with substantiality, or
even with materiality; but the infinite is after all actual, for it in-
heres in activity which wherever we take it is always an infinite
series. Moreover, every particular part of the universe may be
considered in its relation to the whole; yet the present moment in
its relation to other moments in both the past and the future is but
a fleeting point in infinite time, and every spot that determines a
definite locality may in all directions and at any imaginal distance
be placed in relation to the surrounding world, which renders the
proposition obvious that the infinite is the potentiality of actual ex-
istence, and is as such not less real than the finite. The present
moment alone is truly existent, and the "here" is to us the centre
of the universe. It is the place in which our activity is real, but the
directions which it can pursue as well as the distance to which, at
least in thought, it may venture, are alike infiinite.

Infinitude is an evanescent quality; it comes or goes according
to the viewpoint we take, according to the task we set ourselves.
Take, for instance, the line AB, which may be one mile, or one foot,
or one inch long, just as small as you see fit. It is finite ; yet you can
divide it and there is no limit to your division. It is infinitely
divisible. Thus you create infinitude by a conceptual viewpoint. Or
take a definite number, e. g. the fraction 1-3; it is a definite quan-
tity, but if we change it into a decimal fraction, the result is an
infinite decimal fraction, viz., 0.3333 .... to be continued without
end. If we ever stop the fraction is no longer equal to 1-3. Yet
this infinite decimal exactly equals the unequivocally finite and
definite faction 1-3. The infinite fraction 0.3333 .... can never be
completed, the definite fraction 1-3 is complete. The infinite and the
finite are not two different things, but they are two aspects of the
same reality. The finite hangs in the infinite as a temporary and
concrete actualisation, and the infinite is inherent in the finite as the

INFINITUDE AS A PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM. 129

inexhaustible potentiality of its activity. The finite is the change-
able, the non-permanent, the transient. The infinite is the resource
of all possible existence illimitable in its possibilities.

This conception of infinity seems to be a negation of its exist-
ence; and assuredly it is a negation of the notion that infinitude
can ever be a concrete thing, realised in any place or at any one
time, or in any material body or collection of bodies. But while
it denies the materiality, the concreteness, the definiteness (or let us
directly add, the finiteness) of infinity, it yet implies its actuality as
a most prominent feature of the world-process. Infinity is an in-
trinsic quality of all activity, and as such it is the most essential
part of reality constituting its profundity and the mysterious charm
of its eternal youthfulness and freshness ; for if it were not, reality
would be monotonous, and if not meaningless, certainly both shallow
and trite because exhaustible in meaning.

LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE.1

FRANCE.

TF we accept the theory of evolution — limiting it to the psycho-
-*• logical structure of the human individual — we are led to ac-
cept also the priority of the emotional life to the intellectual life.
And from this follows as immediate consequence that the emotions
must have their own logic, anterior to rational logic and different
from it in its forms and means, but having the same object, filling
the same function in the life of the species.

This further consequence is derived from our premise, that,
despite the usual complexity of the phenomena of personality, there
can and must be cases of purely emotional memory, that is to say,
cases in which the emotional states are recalled by memory and rec-
ognised as such independently of the sensorial or intellectual phe-
nomena that accompany them. And, as a necessary accompaniment
to this, there must finally exist forms of the creative imagination
which are also emotional, affecting only the emotions, "having for
their material emotional states and. nothing else." Thus the higher
mental life would find itself closely united to the physiological trunk
by intermediate stages without any break whatever. This is, in
brief, the succession of dominant ideas which are developed with
remarkable precision and clearness in the most recent works of
M. Th. Ribot. To his Psychologic des sentiments, and his Essai
sur I' imagination creatrice, has just been added La logique des sen-
timents, which completes this phase of his work: and this work is
nothing less than a total reconstruction of the science of psychology.

1 Translated from the original manuscript by W. H. Carruth, University
of Kansas.

\

LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE. 13!

M. Ribot (I may limit myself here to a brief analysis of the
work) considers in logic not simply the ensemble of rules, which
determine the conditions of a proof, but also the natural facts, in-
dividual or collective, the emotions, beliefs, opinions, etc., which
furnish a part of the materials for the reasoning process. "This
man's judgment is influenced by his feelings," "passion has its
logic," are expressions familiar to each one of us : they have a greater
import than one thinks before reflecting. M. Ribot faces the subject
in its true aspect and in its general features: he assumes the judg-
ment itself to be a primitive element ; he does not separate reason-
ing from the other operations that accompany it in the work of the
mind; in a word, he treats the operations called logical as simple
facts, without concern for their form or their validity. From his
point of view it appears directly that the logic of feeling is very
much the most vivid and widespread, and, to use his own words,
that "primitive reasoning is to the reasoning of the logicians as
the implements of the stone age are to the perfected tools of our
own time."

In a preliminary discussion he establishes the fact that we must
not expect to find the conditions of structure and connection of
emotional reasoning in association: association reveals only the
terms of the judgment and the reasoning; we must see also the
relations. Emotional reasoning takes association for granted, but
goes beyond it: the emotional temperament makes a choice among
the states of consciousness, it has an end in view, consciously or un-
consciously, neglecting or suppressing whatever tends to turn it
aside from this goal.

Contrasted as they are, emotional logic and rational logic have
a common foundation in reasoning. Even though the mechanism
of the reasoning differs, it retains in both cases its characteristic
mark, it is "a mediate operation the end of which is a conclusion."
It might be said in objection to this that the logic of the feelings
would then be confused with sophistry. But M. Ribot shows that
they are not in all points coincident. There is a difference between
them in both point of view and procedure. Sophisms may be wholly
lacking in emotional quality, and emotional reasonings may be

132 THE MONIST.

entirely free from sophistry. Rational logic cannot cover the entire
domain of knowledge and action; the logic of the feelings serves
man in all the cases where he has an immediate interest in assuming
or justifying a conclusion.

Emotional logic has, then, its own field ; there follows naturally
the study of its constituent elements. Its terms are judgments with
an emotional coefficient, "judgments of values," variable, subjective,
not always consistent, which reasoning will transform on occasion
into objective and general judgments. As for the relations which
connect these terms, it will be sufficient to note that emotional rea-
soning sets out from a wish or a belief ; that it accordingly proceeds
toward a desired goal, toward an end which has been accepted in
advance; that the conclusion therefore conditions the sequence of
the arguments from which it is predestined to issue, which argu-
ments are in this case not merely words, but in addition gestures,
acts, intonations, etc. ; and, finally, that the logic of the feelings
differs from the other kind by being exempt from the principle of
contradiction, since the values of sentiment may be contradictions
to the reason and yet reconcilable in practice.

How diverse are the forms assumed by the logic of the feelings
may be imagined from the preceding analysis. M. Ribot designates
them provisionally by the following epithets: passional (or emo-
tional), unconscious, imaginative, justificatory, mixed or composite;
he describes their several manifestations. But yet, whatever be
these forms, if we ignore their substance, their content, the logical
agency peculiar to each one, their individual ends, and consider only
the part that contributes to the general aim of the individual, we
find that they may be reduced to two types, according as they con-
tribute to the conservation or to the expansion of the individual —
these two fundamental tendencies of emotional life which are so
intimately connected in the higher animals.

M. Ribot, I may say in passing, pays some attention, and with
good reason, to the subject of religious conversions. It would
seem to me to be very interesting to study the reverse situation. I
do not doubt that the analysis of certain cases would prove very

LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE. 133

instructive. But I can not tarry over this point at present, and I
now come to the last portion of M. Ribot's work.

The logic of the feelings has a character fundamentally prac-
tical. However, one case constitutes an exception: this is when it
is employed in the service of creative esthetics. Even here, it is
never reduced to pure association; it is probable that some sort of
reasoning is involved in the genesis of every esthetic creation. For
my own part I am inclined to affirm this. Does there exist by any
possibility a form of emotional creative imagination dealing ex-
clusively with emotions? This is the new question that awaits so-
lution.

M. Ribot has undertaken to prove that musical creation alone
of all presents this character. He does indeed show how poetry,
as soon as it tries to be purely emotional, tends to approach the
type of music, neglecting the sense of the words and listening only
to their sound. Similarly with painting when it sacrifices technique
to visions seen in dreams.

However, I would make one reservation, or rather a suggestion,
on the subject of the division of musicians into two groups, accord-
ing as they see in their art only an architecture of sounds, a form,
an arabesque, or on the other hand as they value in it only the ex-
pression of passion. The extreme positions would be those of the
composer who would think out his music as one figures out a game
of checkers, and again of the musician who would reduce it to some
sort of -soul without body. But, in fact, it seems to me that all the
masters keep between these two practically unattainable extremes;
the two methods are really inseparable, at least in practice. The
constructors of arabesques cannot wholly escape some sense of
grace, of voluptuousness, cannot repress all tendency to expression,
nor, on the other hand, can the musicians of passion altogether resist
the charm of combinations. There are not wanting in the works of
the most passionate masters pages which bear witness to a regard
for ingenuity or even have their origin in the fondness for some
concourse of sweet sounds.

The exceptions which may be pointed out will not break down
the thesis, — that the fundamental condition of the emotional creative

134 THE MONIST.

imagination is "the disposition to be moved not simply by actual
events, but by memories of feelings, that is to say, by the emotional
memory, and to build with these materials just as the imagination
with a sensational basis builds with forms and colors." However,
we must not demand of the musician that he necessarily and ab-
solutely realise the type. After all is said, the musician works in
sounds as the painter works in colors. The language of each of the
arts is the peculiar discovery of that art, and music itself, be it ever
so mystic, appeals to a sensory pleasure which at least serves as
support or as vehicle for a feeling.

If we consider, on the other hand, that many poets and painters
also represent the emotional type, we shall be led to the conclusion
that this disposition to build with materials of an emotional character
is independent of the special — psychological — endowment which
makes this artist a poet or a painter and that one a musician. But
this gift afterwards reacts upon his character because of the media
peculiar to the language which his endowment indicates and im-
poses upon him. It is the very quality of sound that makes it to
an artist of an emotional temperament a more adequate and more
immediate instrument than color. The language of sounds is a
creation of man, even more so than the language of colors. In fine,
it would seem that hearing is, if I may venture to say it, a more in-
timate and interior phenomenon than sight. We are obliged in
some sort to go outside of ourselves in order to see something out-
side, and this is one of the reasons for the opposition of these arts,
an opposition, which, while common, is not constant, not always so
pronounced in many individuals.

In short, there remain for me certain difficulties inherent in the
thesis, and I publish them now as they occur to me, expecting to
get more light by so doing. M. Ribot has such clearness and force
that I am not quite sure but the mistake is mine. However, it is
time to leave his fascinating volume, over which I linger in spite
of myself. It will stand among the most original works that have
thus far been written by this unchallenged master of French psy-
chology.

LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE. 135

The work of M. Th. Ruyssen, Essai sur devolution psycho-
logique du jugement, touches in some points that of M. Ribot, and
follows the same method. The main thesis of M. Ruyssen involves,
in fact, the following procedures, which are, moreover, intimately
connected — the application of the genetic method to the study of
the judgment, and the extension of physiology into psychology.

Philosophers hitherto have studied the judgment as exempli-
fied in judgments, — the completed judgment of the adult or even
of the child. According to the particular doctrine of each philos-
opher the judgment has been regarded as an operation of the in-
telligence, an act of the will, etc. And the intervention of the will,
of desire, has led to the paying greater attention to the part of the
physiological concommitants, sensations, movements, etc. When
once the method of the natural sciences was introduced, the in-
vestigators became more bold ; they have attempted, and not with-
out success, to apply the genetic method to the operations of the
mind: for example, they have undertaken to determine the manner
in which judgments are formed, of what elements they are com-
posed, and what paths are travelled by the mind in forming judg-
ments.

M. Ruyssen intends to push this investigation still further. He
takes note not only of the composition and evolution of our judg-
ments ; he would attempt to go to the heart of the matter and report
the formation of credulity, that is to say, of the habit developed
within us of judging and believing. Accordingly, judgment will
not be considered henceforth in its isolated exterior products; it
will be traced back to the fundamental acts of life, studied as a
function in the process of evolution of the individual himself just
as deeply as it may be possible to follow it. Physiology must illu-
mine, if not explain, the psychological process.

But how shall the transition be accomplished ? What principles
may be followed in connecting the evolution of the judgment with
that of life? M. Ruyssen hopes to find them in these two great
facts: habit and adaptation, which are met under different aspects
at every step of the ladder of life: the tendency to perpetuate the

136 THE MONIST.

vital stimuli, and to respond (with an excess of energy, he adds in
italics, following Spencer) to the stimuli most favorable to living.
It is evident that spontaneity is a prime fact involved and
recognised, without which we could not conceive either habits or
adaptations. It is no less clear that we can scarcely refuse to rec-
ognise something like a rudiment of consciousness in the elementary
manifestations of life. M. Rtiyssen does not flatter himself that he
will find the first states of consciousness of the child emerging from
"a sort of psychic vacuum or non-existence," but rather, as he puts
it, "from a background at once extraordinarily complex and solid
of psychological states obscurely perceived and of habits uncon-
sciously acquired." The repetition of acts beneficial to the organ-
ism will be, in brief, the initial point. It takes a liberal step to get
from this to the clear consciousness of these relations and the con-
struction of the edifice of logic. On the genesis itself of our faculty
of judgment we have no direct light; we have been able only to
try to untangle the vital reasons of our tendency to affirm, to judge,
and to believe. M. Rtiyssen has announced no pretention of teach-
ing us more than this. In the very interesting pages in which he
studies the attention, doubt, belief, etc., and which constitute the
subject of another part of his book, he follows, indeed, the ordinary
processes of psychology. I have not the time to pursue this further ;
it will suffice to have characterised his meritorious attempt. His
work marks one of the most pronounced steps that have been taken

toward the solution of a problem of first importance.

* * *

To what class of feelings the esthetic feeling belongs ; to what
other feelings it is related; what place these feelings occupy in the
life of the individual and the species; to what characteristics in
things the sense of beauty in us corresponds; by what signs the
peculiar sense of beauty is recognised ; under what forms and in
what circumstances it is manifested; from what capital the various
arts are enriched; in what proportion the passions of the soul and
rational motives unite to form them: these are some of the prob-
lems that present themselves to us as soon as we begin to discuss the
origin of art, its expression, its nature. The very title of the im-

LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE. 137

portant work of M. Paul Souriau, La beaute rationnelle, shows us
that he does not propose to attack them all, and that he has devoted
himself especially to establishing, in accordance with his conception
of the term, the plan of a system of esthetics calculated to bring to-
gether divers theories and to formulate general principles which
would assure a practice at once rational and more conscious of its
object and its means.

Perhaps this title will rouse the apprehensions of some readers.
Let them be reassured, M. Souriau does not approach his subject
in an autocratic spirit; he begins his study where we might all be-
gin it, excepting that we would not carry the theory of subjectivity
in art to the extreme point of denying all relation of appropriateness
between the qualities of things and the impressions that we receive
from them. He concedes that esthetic judgments "are perhaps the
most subjective, those into which we put the most of ourselves and
involve our personality most profoundly."

But for all that, not everything here is personal; objective
judgments are "implied in all our judgments of taste." These are
the elements which it is necessary to eliminate. It is necessary
to subject our esthetic judgments to rational supervision, taking
them just as facts, experience and acquired notions have made them
to-day, instead of going back to the Deluge. And if, on the other
hand, this work of supervision leads back constantly to reasons de-
rived from self-interest, from our knowledge, from our dignity,
M. Souriau accepts the reproach which may be brought against him
of confounding esthetics with logic, with science, with morals, for
it is precisely toward such a fusion that it is tending with all its
might.

Determination of the idea of the beautiful, sensual beauty, in-
tellectual beauty, moral beauty, — these are some of the divisions
under which the author's arguments are arranged. Starting, in
accordance with his programme, not from experience nor from
evolution, but from reason, he posits to begin with these two prin-
ciples : beauty is evident perfection, and perfection is the conformity
of a thing to its purpose, so that the domination of purposes will
give us that of perfections, the most elevated purpose that we can

138 THE MONIST.

possibly conceive being the full flower of conscious life. Accord-
ingly the beautiful and the useful, while remaining distinct ideas,
are no longer antagonistic;2 intelligence will contribute, further-
more, to beauty, since its ultimate function is neither to know nor
to comprehend, but to arrange actions with a view to an end ; moral-
ity and beauty consist alike in the perfection of the being, or at least
tend toward it.

I am giving only the skeleton of the theory, which is richly and
very clearly developed. One cannot but approve of M. Souriau's
designs. It has always seemed to me, as it does to him, that every
work of art is subject to one essential condition, that it shall not
contradict either our scientific logic or our moral logic. It is a
hackneyed truth, that the perfection of man is the ultimate object
of our sciences, of our rules of life and of our arts, over and above
the pleasure which they yield us. It would even be legitimate to
conceive of esthetics as "the complete science of sensation and feel-
ing," (as did only recently the much to be regretted Durand de
Gros), ethics being regarded as a branch of it: in fine, the science
of application or of adaptation, under the general principles of
which would be grouped morality and artistic creation, each having
its own theory, its own methods of instruction, and its own tech-
nique.

Some time since (in Dix annees de philosophic, p. 141) I wrote
that art is more or less directly useful in so far as it favors the exer-
cise of natural faculties (this being the biological point of view),
in so far as it ennobles the individual and strengthens social bonds
(this being the ethical point of view), and also in so far as it is a
variety of knowledge and reveals to us something of man and of
exterior nature (this being the scientific point of view) ; neverthe-
less it remains distinct both by virtue of its means of expression, its
language, and by virtue of its immediate end, which is a specific

2 On this point I have always thought that the utility of an object does
not detract from its beauty, but nevertheless it will not suffice to create it:
the beauty lies in the manner of expressing the useful. This consideration
should never be neglected in the judgments which we form on architecture
especially; economic utility produces many ugly results here, which are still
further aggravated by a false art.

LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE. 139

pleasure, or an emotional state and at the same time an intellectual
pleasure. Some further explanations would be necessary here, but
a more thorough discussion of the subject would exceed the limits
of this correspondence. I must take leave of M. Souriau, thanking
him for his work and his criticisms. His book is important and
timely in the midst of the confusion of our schools. Yet I will not

offer to guarantee its efficiency.

* * *

M. Marcel Mauxion, in an Essai sur les elements et I' evolution
de la moralite, makes a careful analysis of the idea of the good. He
reduces the elements of morality to the following three : the esthetic
element, to which individual perfection corresponds ; the logical ele-
ment, to which correspond justice and law; and the sympathetic
element, pity and love. The view which is particularly his own
is the genetic exposition of these elements. The development of the
esthetic element has, in his opinion, always prepared the way and
fixed the conditions for the rational element, which in its turn has
preceded that of the sympathetic element. Whence is derived this
practical conclusion, that it will be impossible to base morality upon
either one of these elements to the exclusion of the others, or to in-
vert their natural and rigorous order.

Incidently I would note an excellent criticism of the theories
of what is called solidarity, — one of those words on which it is
fashionable to build to-day without considering exactly what they
signify. The little volume of M. Mauxion deserves to be read and
studied.

* * *

The Monist has already published an account of the volume of
M. Fr. Paulhan, entitled La fonction de la memoire et le souvenir
affectif. Therefore I may be excused if I do not devote so much
attention to it to-day as the value of the work would demand. M.
Paulhan maintains the reality of emotional recollections (this ques-
tion of emotional memory seems to be the order of the day), but
not without letting it be seen that he mingles with them constantly
intellectual recollections: moreover they both present the charac-
teristic of being constantly modified, separated, or transformed ac-

I4O THE MONIST.

cording to new circumstances. They tend to organise themselves
into systems which will become the foundation of the individual
and will be useful to him. In fine, and without entering into the
analysis of the facts, which are so numerous and so complex, we
have here a painstaking study of the mental mechanism looked at
in an especial light and connecting with the general theory of "sys-
tematic finality," which has been presented by M. Paulhan with

sufficient detail in his previous works.

* * *

M. Malapert's Le caractere3 is a very complete and interesting
work. The reader will find in it a history and a profound criticism
of the attempts at classification proposed in recent years, the economy
of which I have previously pointed out in the present journal. I
think it best to reproduce here the remark made concerning M.
Malapert's work by M. Alfred Binet in the last volume ( loth year)
of the Annee psychologique. It is impossible, M. Binet thinks, to
study characters in the lump and at one sitting; but one can study
and observe particular traits of character very well by putting
oneself in favorable conditions called forth if need be by the ob-
server himself. The wise method to follow, would be to obtain from
nature, series of reactions which one would then group and classify
in order to select typical reactions. Attempts at classification based
upon theoretical views seem to me, as they do to M. Binet, to have
yielded all that they are capable of yielding, and I think with him
that investigators would make a mistake to linger in the path that
has been followed until now. It is better to use a longer but doubt-
less a more fruitful method.

* * *

Here we have a volume of particular interest for American
readers, that of M. Emile Lauvriere, Edgar Poe, sa vie et son ceuvre.
The mere name of Poe gives sufficient ground for conjecturing that
it is a study of pathological psychology; such it is, and the most
complete that has ever been written, if I am not mistaken. Poe's
clinical table is startling. The relations of the work to the tempera-

8 Paris, Doin, pub. Works without any publisher's name are from the
house of F. Alcan,

LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE. 14!

ment of the poet seem to be apparent. It is no exaggeration to say,
in accordance with the documents here collected, that "the poetic
originality of Poe was his affliction" ; his imagination was "the pro-
jection of his defects into literature." And yet, M. Lauvriere re-
marks, the critical sense of the man, his studied taste, his conscious
logic succeeded in organising into a harmonious work discordant
elements which seemed incapable of yielding anything but the in-
coherence of delirium. "Poe's lucid reason triumphs over his irri-
tated sensibility ; his art subdues his madness."

In another place (Memoire et imagination) I have undertaken
to show that the attention persists in the improvisations of the poet
and the dramatist, that the judgment continues to play its part
even in the midst of rapid and inspired performance. I have pointed
out, besides, in connection with the declarations of certain writers,
the watch kept by the poet over the automatic march of the images
of his fancy, the constant and efficient presence of the reason, despite
a seeming subdivision and distraction of the ego and of the uncon-
scious operation of a stranger who might have entered upon the
scene. The example of Poe, in my opinion, supports the truth of
this observation and supports the assumption of the constant pres-
ence of the critical sense. It also permits us to demonstrate that
the effect of troubles combined with a tendency to degeneracy is
not to prevent this activity of the reason or the critical faculty, but
rather, at first and in the majority of cases, to supply the imagination
with imperfect materials. It would be a really instructive study to
disentagle, in certain chosen and particular cases, the precise in-
fluence of the various pathological states upon the production of
the artist and the poet; only in this way would the much debated
question of the relation of genius to madness find any proper answer.
And it is in fine a chapter of such a study, a very important chapter,
which M. Lauvriere has presented to us.

* * *

M. Guy de Charnace has published under the title Hommes
et chases du temps present* independent articles in criticism on
works of philosophy, esthetics ,and science. Himself an eminent

*2 vols., Paris, Emile Paul, pub.

142 THE MONIST.

zootechnician, the Marquis de Charnace is particularly instructive
in the pages where he treats of Groos, Metchnikoff, Lebon, etc.
Evolution finds in him a persistent adversary. He is further inter-
esting in the pages devoted to volumes on psychology, sociology,
or metaphysics, for here he takes up the questions as a man of the
world who has lived his life, and he finds in his "common sense" of
an enlightened and inquisitive reader objections which too fre-
quently escape the specialist shut up in his study. His attitude is
clear and frank : he takes the position of a Catholic and a Christian,
yet without narrowness.

There remain for me to name, without at present being able to
say anything about them, the following works: M. Queyrat, Les
jeux chez les enfants; MM. Toulouse, Vaschide, and Pieron, Tech-
nique de psychologie experimentale* ; M. A. Levy, La philosophie
de Feuerbach; M. Remy de Gourmont, Physique de Vamour, essai
sur I' instinct sexuel* ; L'abbe Laberthonniere, Le realisme chretien
et I'idealisme grec7 ; M. Le Dantec, Les influences ancestrales8 ; M.
Brunetiere, Sur les chemins de la croyance6, a work which will de-
mand a thorough discussion. Etc.

LUCIEN ARREAT.

PARIS, FRANCE, December, 1904.

POSTSCRIPT. I have just received a copy of the Revue de philo-
sophie, managed by M. Peilloube (4th year, No. n).10 This ex-
cellent review is not unknown to the readers of The Monist. It is
well arranged, liberal, and offers to its readers the means to follow
the philosophic movement. I will mention in this number a very
complete report of the International Congress of Philosophy, held
at Geneva, of the Congress of History and Sciences, also held at
Geneva, and of the Congress of the British Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science at Cambridge.

5 Doin, pub. 8 Mercure de France, pub. T Lethielleux, pub.

8 Flammarion, pub. * Perrin, pub. 10 Chevalier et Riviere, pub.

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS.

AN INTERNATIONAL AUXILIARY LANGUAGE.
To the Editor of The Monist.

I am late in thanking you for your kind gift of the July Monist con-
taining so many interesting articles on the international language. The cause
of my delay is found in the many claims upon my time and particularly in
the Second International Congress of Philosophy, which met at Geneva from
the fourth to the eighth of September. I take pleasure in informing you
that the Congress, after having heard my report on the progress of the no-
tion of an international language, took the following action:

1. It endorsed the platform of the Commision on the adoption of an
international auxiliary language.

2. It renewed my appointment as member of the Commission, which I
had received from the first session of the Congress at Paris in 1900.

3. It appointed as a new member of the Commission Prof. Ludwig Stein,
of Berne, who has long been in sympathy with our undertaking and who
spoke in its behalf at the Congress.

It seems to me that these results are of sufficient importance to deserve
communication to your readers and that they cannot fail to be interested in
them.

If I did not fear to trespass on your indulgence I should add a brief
reply to the objections raised by yourself and M. Arreat, polite and appre-
ciative though they be. Permit me to say that they are all due to an in-
correct or too narrow conception of the problem, or even to a simple lack of
information. I will begin by taking up those which are based upon simple
errors of fact.

You say, for example (p. 565), that the devotees of Volapuk in different
countries have had much difficulty in understanding one another. On the con-
trary, at the International Congress of Volapuk, held in 1889, people of all
countries conversed and held discourse in Volapuk with great ease and under-
stood one another perfectly. Volapuk has even made marriages (I could
cite the names) of persons of different nationalities who had no other com-

144 THE MONIST.

mon language. To-day Esperanto has accomplished still more completely
what you regard as a miracle: this summer there have been several meetings
of French and English Esperantists at Havre, Rouen, and Dover, and they
all conversed continually in Esperanto with the greatest ease and familiarity.
You may confirm this by inquiry of the British Consul at Havre, or of the
Mayor of Dover.

Moreover, the unheard of and almost incredible fact was observed, that
the English who spoke Esperanto had none of that characteristic accent
which marks them forthwith when they undertake to speak French ! This
in response to M. Arreat who still doubts whether an artificial language can
actually be spoken (p. 563) ! If my personal testimony has any value I will
record the following fact : I have never learned to speak Esperanto ; I only
read it. Now a Russian Esperantist came to my house one day unexpectedly
and addressed me in Esperanto. I understood him perfectly without losing
a single word of his conversation (which never happens to me with either
a German or an Englishman), and without any preparation I was able to
reply to him in Esperanto and make myself perfectly intelligible to him
(which I should not be able to do in English, and only with difficulty in
German). Draw your own conclusions! You (and M. Arreat) say that
an artificial language would not be easier to learn than a living language
(pp. 563 and 596). This is an entire mistake! It is a hundred times easier
to learn, because it is regular. Just think of what a marvel of simplicity you
have in a language without exceptions ! You speak of English as an easy
language, because its grammar is a bit simpler than that of other languages.
But you forget that it is quite as irregular as others, quite as full of anomalies
and want of logic, that the English syntax frequently gives rise to equivo-
cations (for example, in the deplorable habit of omitting the relative pro-
noun), and that English style swarms with idioms that are unintelligible to
an uninitiated foreigner. Reforming English orthography and making it
phonetic will not render English easier for foreigners to pronounce; this
will simply make it more difficult to read.

M. Arreat says : "Is it not better to learn English, which puts me into
touch with 150 millions of men?" Without discussing this number, which
seems to me to be exaggerated (the number of those whose mother tongue
is English is usually reckoned at 125 millions, and it is evidently unfair to
add to this the number of foreigners who may know English, for in this case
we must also add to the number of Frenchmen the number of those who can
speak French, etc.), I will simply reply to this: I have not and shall never
have anything to do with these 125 millions of people; but as trader and
scholar I shall have to do with a thousand persons who speak English; but
I shall also have to do with a thousand who speak German, with 500 speak-
ing Italian, with 500 speaking Spanish, with 500 speaking Russian, with 200

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS. 145

speaking Dutch, with 100 speaking some Skandinavian language, and so on.
What good will English do me with all these other people? Why should a
Frenchman and a German, an Italian and a Russian use English in talking
with one another rather than the national language of some one of them ? Will
my knowledge of English enable me to read the literary works and scien-
tific publications of Hungary and Poland? This shows how absurd it is to
propose any given living language whatever as an international language.
You propose English because it is spoken by 125 millions of people. Why
not propose Chinese, which is spoken by 400 millions? If it is a matter of
numbers the Chinese ought to carry the day. Is it not better to be in touch
with 400 million men than with 125 million? You see, your arguments are
refuted by the reductio ad abs-urdum.

You allege that English language and literature are international (p. 595),
and I may reply: Neither more nor less than the French literature, the
German literature, the Russian literature (Tolstoy), and even the Skandi-
navian literature (Ibsen). This then is not a peculiar claim of the English,
nor an argument in its favor. You think that it is spoken and understood
"everywhere" ; but go to Italy, for instance : French is the language spoken
by all who have business with foreigners, and I have seen Englishmen very
much embarrassed where a Frenchman could get along perfectly well. You
accuse Mr. Ostwald of having a "national prejudice" against English, and
you attempt to find political reasons for this (592). I am not prepared to re-
ply to this in the name of the Germans, but I can affirm as a Frenchman
that the animosities which you recall no longer linger among us, and that
public opinion is favorable to "a cordial mutual understanding."

Permit me to say to you, that if any one is the victim of national prejudice
it is he who proposes his own language as the international medium, and not
the one who discards every national tongue, including his own, in favor of
the international language. The exclusion of national languages, recorded in
our programme, is a clause expressing mutual disinterestedness; it is the
indispensable condition for any international agreement, and it may boldly
be asserted that if an international language is ever adopted it will of neces-
sity be a neutral one.

I know very well that you think very little of a formal and, as it were,
diplomatic agreement, and that you expect the solution of the problem not
from an agreement and a vote, but from the natural concurrence of languages.
I have no objection; but you forget that the same national prejudices which
were opposed to the official adoption of a living language are also invincibly
opposed to its natural propagation. You invoke "the struggle for existence,"
"natural selection," and "the survival of the fittest." But precisely because
they do struggle for existence national languages will not abdicate in fa-
vor of one from among their own ranks. As for natural selection, it may

146 THE MONIST.

just as well occasion the triumph of two or three languages or even of six,
as of a single one; the problem will not be solved in this way.

But even this is a chimera: the Germans and Russians have not suc-
ceeded after a century in suppressing the Polish tongue, even when it would
be to the interest of the Poles to use the language of their conquerors. And
yet you expect that the English can ever suppress German, French, or
Russian? English will be the universal language only when the whole world
is English ! — and even then it is not sure of dominion. Greek survived along-
side of Latin in the heart of the Roman Empire and was the international
language of the entire Orient; Roman emperors, such as Marcus Aurelius
and Julian, wrote in Greek. And let me add, that you are dreaming of a
universal language, that is, one common to all nations, while we are asking
only for an auxiliary language, which will be learned in any case only by
a minority in each country and which will leave the national languages as
they are, with their natural territory and their peaceable rivalry.

But it is unworthy of philosophers to expect from constraint and vio-
lence the solution of a problem in civilisation. It is not by exciting national
self-love and interest and by favoring dreams of universal conquest and
megalomania that we shall succeed in making humanity better and happier:
every appeal to violence is a relapse of civilisation, a return to barbarism.
This is particularly true of the problem of an international language. This
problem can be solved only by an agreement among civilised nations (whether
this understanding be spontaneously developed, or under the official form
which we are proposing in order to speed its realisation) — and by the adop-
tion of a neutral idiom, which shall be equally intelligible for all the peoples
of European civilisation, and whereby all may communicate together on a
perfectly equal footing. Every time that a national language is made use
of between two people of different race one of the speakers or writers is
more or less sarcrificed or subordinated to the other; he feels himself to be
in a position of inferiority, and this produces a sentiment of embarrasment
and resentment. On the other hand, an auxiliary language is neutral ground,
equally unfamiliar, or rather equally familiar to both parties, and one on
which they feel themselves equally at ease. Here as everywhere else equality
is the condition of fraternity.

LOUIS COUTURAT.

Postscript: I am glad to be able to announce that the "French Philo-
sophical Society" determined on October 27 to support the Commission and
appointed as its representative on the same M. Bergson, member of the Acad-
emy of Moral Sciences and Professor in the College de France, the well
known and respected philosopher, who has long approved our undertaking.

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS. 147

EDITORIAL REPLY.

It is not our intention to enter into a controversy with M. Couturat,
especially as we cherish toward his endeavor the most kindly sentiments and
(in spite of our doubts) wish that his hope of an auxiliary international
language might be fulfilled. Accordingly we shall here limit ourselves to a
tew statements in which M. Couturat has mistaken our attitude.

If an auxiliary international language will prove to be what M. Couturat
expects of it we shall be most glad to use it and spread it all over the world.
So far we have not yet been convinced of the usefulness of any of the auxil-
iary international languages, among which Esperanto seems to be the most
promising one. Our doubts as to the success of Esperanto do not prevent
us, however, from serving the good cause and making the ideal, as well as
all the propositions to actualise it, known to our readers. That is all we can
do under the present circumstances, and therefore our attitude is one of de-
cided friendliness, not of hostility.

M. Couturat seems to be under the impression that I have proposed Eng-
lish as the international language. That is not the case. I have only used
the spread of the English language as an instance how an international
language will gradually establish itself and how it will conquer the world.
I have not as yet declared myself an adherent to making English the inter-
national language. While English is at present the simplest language, I am
perfectly aware of its many shortcomings among which I enumerated only
a few.

When I said that English is no longer the language of the English but
international I did not mean to declare that English is as yet the inter-
national language. I simply meant that English is spoken by other nations
than the English. English is the national language of the United States as
well as all the English colonies, which are so many budding nations, and prac-
tically also of South Africa. It is a fact that the bitterest enemies of Eng-
land speak the English tongue. No more vigorous invectives against the
English nation and the English government have been published in other
languages than in English. English is spoken by the Irish and also by al-
most half of the anti-English Africanders.

My policy with regard to the adoption of an international language is
simply the principle of laissez faire. I believe that the best adapted language
will naturally conquer in the long run. Should English prove to be the
simplest and best medium for an international exchange of thought, let
English by its own intrinsic merit become the international language. If
there be any other language, artificial or natural, that is superior, let it prove
its superiority by being acceptable to the majority of mankind, and I believe
that in a free competition in which we give fair chances to every one the
fittest will survive.

148 THE MONIST.

Most assuredly I believe in the ideal that at last mankind will speak one
language, and I trust that the time will come when mankind will have one
civilisation, whose forms may differ but which is one in possessing the same
moral ideals. Whether or not the different national languages will be pre-
served is a matter of secondary importance.

So long as the different nationalities still have a hold on the several
races of mankind it seems to me that a pasigraphy would be the best and
easiest medium of communication, and with this idea in mind, I have proposed
my scheme as published in The Monist, Vol. XIV, No. 4, which is so far a
mere general scheme but could, if completed by competent hands, be con-
densed into a grammar of a few pages, the principles of which could be
learned within an hour by the mere perusal of a leaflet, and thus it would
enable any traveller to make his wishes known to strangers while travelling
among people with whose language he is absolutely unacquainted, if only he
carries a grammar of pasigraphy along in the shape of a small pamphlet,
written in the language of the country. PAUL CARUS.

SUGGESTIONS CONCERNING PASIGRAPHY.

I have been much interested in your suggestion of a new universal lan-
guage, Pasigraphy, in the July number of The Monist. A few suggestions
have come to my mind that I send you, thinking perhaps you might consider
them while the language is still in an experimental stage.

To begin with, I am heartily in favor of your suggestion and think it
altogether the most promising one that I have ever seen for a universal lan-
guage. I do not think there is any hope of securing the universal adoption
of any one language, on account of national jealousies, and I am not even
sure that it would be advantageous, since many of the race differences which
have been so effective in the building up of our complex civilisation in all
its different phases would be wiped out if race and national differences were
eliminated. It seems to me, however, that pasigraphy might well be tied
up to English pronunciation in case it were to be widely used, English being
so direct a language that few modifications would be required to make its
grammar scientific. Still, I suppose a German could read pasigraphy if he
wanted to, though it would never seem like German.

This brings up the matter of a phonetic system to accompany pasigraphy.
For proper names some phonetic system must be used, and if the English
pronunciation be given to pasigraphy the pronunciation could be figured in
this phonetic alphabet for the use of beginners. I have not looked up
Alexander Graham Bell's Scientific Alphabet, but it might perhaps be useful
for this purpose.

The matter of fundamental importance, however, which occurs to me

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS. 149

is that in pasigraphy you will in the long run sacrifice legibility to conve-
nience in writing. I believe Chinese will be easier to read than pasigraphy
when you get a large vocabulary. Why not make your characters more com-
plicated and then have a simplified form, as the Chinese do, for quick writ-
ing. The great advantage of Chinese characters that has been pointed out
to me by an educated Japanese who knew English perfectly and which is,
I believe also noticed by Williams, is the startling definiteness with which
the idea stands forth when once the character has been mastered. We read
words by their shape, and certainly the Chinese have more distinctive shapes
than our own printed words where often some small mark, for instance,
like the straight line of an e distinguishing it from a c, is all that separates
widely different words.

However, the most important matter of all to my mind is the construc-
tion of a dictionary. I do not see that you have made any provision for this,
which, however, must be made early in the development of pasigraphy.

As soon as you have a thousand characters it will be a hopeless task
to hunt through them to find one that is forgotten or as yet unlearned. The
Chinese system of a certain number of root characters out of which other
words are formed by compounding might be used, or perhaps some system
based on the geometrical form of the character. At any rate, some sort of
a dictionary must be gotten up, and I believe you will be forced to compound
characters in order to avoid having too many primary roots which would be
difficult to find.

The awakening of China is at hand, and I believe a rational system of
pasigraphy based on a world language could perhaps be adopted early in the
development of that great country.

I hope you will devote a page in each number of The Monist to pasig-
raphy and ultimately give exercises, perhaps with keys, written in the new
system.

All these are mere suggestions which grew out of my interest in your
suggestion. I think it would be well for a commission to get together as
soon as possible a grammar, elementary reader, and a dictionary, since I do
not think it best to leave to the spontaneous efforts of experts the perfection
of the symbols. The co-operation you speak of on page 582 would be essen-
tial to the proper development of the new language.

A last suggestion is that a society could perhaps be formed for the per-
fection of pasigraphy and that for the present it could be kept in an embyronic
condition; that each member of the society be called upon to suggest symbols
for new words, to be submitted to the council of the society; and that after
a few months or years of such experimenting the language be put out in
final form in such shape that it could be taught in the public schools and
struggle for existence against Esperanto and other artificial languages. The

15° THE MONIST.

minute one tries to write a sentence one strikes the need for new characters,
as you will see from the slip I enclose. From the results that I have seen
in many lines of work I am much inclined to think that Mr. Cook's symbasis
is as important in intellectual advancement as in organic evolution, and I
believe its application to pasigraphy would be advantageous whereby the co-
operating intelligences of many would be blended together to form as per-
fect a language as possible.

WALTER T. SWINGLE.

THE POWER OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS AS A FACTOR IN
THE DETERMINATION OF THE WORLD LANGUAGE.

In the discussion of the theme dealt with in Dr. Ostwald's Weltsprache
there is one phase of the problem that is usually left out of account, namely,
the political force behind a language.

As long as Greece sent forth colonies the Greek tongue continued to
spread. It is true, the rich and varied intellectual treasures of which it was
the bearer counted for something, but they were not the most important fac-
tor in its expansion: this was the governments that were able to hold their
own against the tribes by which those colonies were surrounded. As soon
as Rome came into conflict with Greek peoples they had to give way to
better organised political institutions. At first Italy and its islands ceased
to be Greek; next the more specifically Greek lands followed and became to
a greater or less extent Romanised. But in the East neither Greece nor
Rome could long hold its ground in the face of the foes that appeared on
every side.

On the basis of these facts and of others of a similar nature, what
is the legitimate inference to be drawn? Every one who knows anything
about the development of political institutions is aware that those worked
out in England have more powerfully influenced modern thought than any
other. More than two centuries ago continental writers began to point to
the English representative system as the ideal government, while the English
themselves have evinced very little inclination to change it. They go no
farther than to admit the necessity of some modifications.

We are compelled by the events themselves to say that the English,
using the term in its widest sense, expand because the government supports
but does not lead those who go forth to make homes for themselves in new
countries. The spirit of personal initiative and individual independence is
carried abroad by the emigrants. Both the French and the Spaniards had
the start of the English in getting a foot-hold on this continent, the Spaniards
especially preempting the fairest portions of it ; but neither held its possessions
long or made much of its opportunities.

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS. 15!

Professor Fouillee says in his Psychologic du peuple franfais: "At the
end of the seventeenth century France had twenty million inhabitants, Great
Britain and Ireland eight or ten millions, the present German empire twenty-
one millions, Austria twelve to thirteen millions." He cites the authority of
Leroy-Beaulieu to the effect that if a statistician had made a prophecy of
the population of England at that time for about the year 1900 he would not
have put down to the credit of the country more than eight or ten millions.
Fouillee continues: "In 1789 France had twenty-six millions, Great Britain
and Ireland twelve millions, the German empire thirty-three millions, Aus-
tria eighteen millions." It will thus be seen that one hundred years ago sev-
eral European languages were more numerously represented than the Eng-
lish ; for to the above we may add the Spanish and the Italian, to say nothing
of the Russian.

How does the case stand now?

There are in North America not less than eighty millions who speak
English. In the rest of the world, outside of Great Britain and Ireland, there
are probably eight millions more. We thus get a total of English-speaking
people greater than the whole population of the Russian empire, in which,
however, a large portion of the population does not speak Russian. Toward
the end of the sixteenth century England had only five millions of a popula-
tion, and a hundred years later it had gained only a million. From that time
on the increase has been almost marvellous. At the present rate, which there
is no reason to believe will be materially checked within the next century,
it is not hard to see that by the year two thousand English will be the Welt-
sprache. CHARLES W. SUPER.

CLARENCE L. HERRICK. OBITUARY.

We publish in this issue a posthumous article of Dr. Clarence L. Herrick,
well known in the scientific world for the services he rendered to the Uni-
versity of New Mexico in his capacity as President, and among neurologists
as the Editor of the Journal of Comparative Neurology, the standard period-
ical of its kind in this country. The Editor of The Monist has been in
correspondence with Dr. Herrick for a long time and during past years car-
ried on a friendly controversy in the neurological journal concerning the
seat of consciousness. Of late Dr. Herrick had sent a manuscript for pub-
lication in The Monist, "On the Passing Away of Materialism," and the
date of its appearance had been fixed for the present number, but unfortu-
nately Dr. Herrick, who had suffered for a long time from ill health, passed
away on Thursday morning, the I5th of September. The following con-
densed statement of his career is extracted from the U. N. M. Weekly of

I52 THE MONLST.

Albuquerque and advance sheets of the Journal of Comparative Neurology,
kindly forwarded by his brother, Prof. C. Judson Herrick:

"Prof. Clarence L. Herrick, M. S., Ph. D., was born in Minneapolis,
Minn., in 1858. He graduated with high honors from the University of
Minnesota in 1880. A year was next devoted to hard study and careful re-
search in the University of Leipsic. In 1885 he accepted the professorship
of geology and biology in Denison University, Granville, Ohio. Much suc-
cess crowned his efforts there, but in 1889 he accepted the chair of biology
in the University of Cincinnati. It was here that he founded the Journal
of Comparative Neurology, of which he remained editor-in-chief up to the
time of his decease.

"After another season of study in Germany and return to Denison, Pro-
fessor Herrick became distinguished in the scientific world. In America there
was not his superior as a neurologist. The University of Chicago elected
him to a chair of biology. A naturally vigorous constitution, however, now
gave way, even under forty years of age, owing to his unremitting zeal and
toil, and lie sought the almost hopeless expedient of the climate of New
Mexico.

"Here out-of-door life and his intense interest in nature so far restored
him to health that he successfully held the presidency of the University of
New Mexico for some time, but ill-health again obliged him to resign that
important post.

"During his last year there was an obvious failing of physical strength,
so that long field trips had to be abandoned. But the more quiet life gave
opportunity for a thorough recasting of many questions and formulation of
matters which had been in his mind all his life. So that before his death
much of the philosophical correlation, of which mention has been made, was
effected. A number of articles have already been published in the philosoph-
ical serial bearing on these matters, and there is a considerable collection of
manuscripts remaining, much of which can doubtless be edited for publica-
tion. It is gratifying to know that he had the satisfaction of seeing this
work so well rounded out before his death, and that the later months of his
life were much more restful than those preceding, some of which were marked
by extreme suffering. He continued in about the usual health until Sep-
tember 8, when he again had a series of uncontrollable hemorrhages, daily
becoming weaker until on the morning of the I5th he peacefully passed away.

"The end came in accordance with his own most earnest wish — he fell
fighting for the truth. As one of those who were near him when he passed
away has said: 'He was taken literally "in the harness." His laboratory and
study tables showed the unfinished tasks. His morning mail brought its
usual load of duties. He had contributed an article to the September number
of the American Geologist, and his mail on the morning of his death brought

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS. 153

a request from Dr. N. H. Winchell for some further contributions to the
October number. Thus in the midst of his labors he passed into the larger
sphere.'

"In estimating the character of his work it is difficult to say whether he
was primarily an investigator or a philosopher. And this is to his great
credit, for he combined in a remarkable degiee the qualifications of an ex-
pert in both of these lines. He had at once acute perceptions and keen in-
sight for scientific details, and a broad philosophic horizon and perspective,
which peculiarly fitted him for the work he undertook of throwing light
upon the nature of consciousness from the neurological side."

"The aim of his life was to throw light upon just such so-called insoluble
problems as the relation of consciousness to the brain. 'Ignorabimus' is a
word which never fell from his lips. The unity of the material and the
mental is a truth upon which he came to lay increasing stress in his later
years. Starting from a Lotzean spiritualistic idealism he never lost hold of
the monism which characterises this philosophic world-view, though in many
respects he worked beyond it, his scientific studies serving to correct any
tendency to an exclusive emphasis upon the mental.

"In the memory of his pupils Professor Herrick was greatest as a
teacher. This statement can only be appreciated by those who knew him
personally and were in his classes. There was no display of oratory. He
was not what would be called a gifted public speaker, though he was often
called upon for such services. It was in the class-room or about the seminar
table or in general conversation that the inexhaustible fertility of his thought
and fine suggestiveness of his language appeared. In his lectures one always
knew that he was getting the best, the latest, the deepest results of his scien-
tific research and philosophic reflection. Never was any work slighted in
which his students were involved. Other things might be sacrificed — time,
money, convenience, even health itself, but never the student."

BOOK REVIEWS.

RELIGION AND THE HIGHER LIFE. Talks to Students. By William Rainey
Harper, President of the University of Chicago. Chicago: The Uni-
versity Press. 1904. Pp. Ix, 184. Price, $1.00.

Dr. William Rainey Harper, President of the University of Chicago, is
one of the strenuous men of the present generation. He is not only an ex-
ceedingly active administrator of the Chicago University but also a good
teacher. In fact, in his specialty as Professor of Hebrew he has no superior
and scarcely an equal among his colleagues. And here we have before us
a book of his in which he shows the methods and tendencies of his influence
upon the students entrusted to his care. It allows an insight into Harper
the educator. Its sub-title "Talks to Students" indicates the spirit that
characterises him as college president in his pastoral work.

Religion in President Harper's opinion is indispensable for obtaining
the higher life. He says:

"Religion is not the mother of art, science, philosophy, and ethics. Re-
ligion is not to be identified with one or all of these. Religion is not the
enemy of art, science, philosophy, or ethics. Religion is independent of these
phases of the higher life, but closely akin — in fact, the oldest sister of the
family. Religion is essential for the fullest development of these phases of
the higher life. Religion must have certain characteristics to work in har-
mony with them."

President Harper speaks of religion in general, meaning those essential
features which all religions have, or ought to have, in common, but the re-
ligion which he has first of all in mind is Christianity. He sees not the
Christianity of any special church or sect, but Christianity in the broadest
sense, which he calls "the religion of Jesus Christ" :

"The religion of Jesus Christ is a religion capable of adjustment to any
and every individual, however peculiar his temperament, however exacting
his demands. Its simpliciity, as the Master himself presented it, is mar-
vellous. In its proper form it has always stood the most rigid tests; and it
appeals as strongly to the reason as to the heart. It will permit you to re-
spect your friend's religion; if he is a Jew, because it came out of Judaism;

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES. 155

if a sincere follower of Islam, because much of Islam came from it; if a
disciple of some Eastern faith, because its founder, Jesus, was broad-minded
and tender, and saw the truth wherever it existed, without reference to the
name it bore. It is a religion of ideals, not weird and fanciful ; but chastened,
strong, and inspiring to true service. It is ethical in a sense peculiar to it-
self, for it is the religion of the Beatitudes and the Golden Rule. It is a
religion that says : "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest.'

"The greatest minds of nineteen centuries have found this religion
helpful. I do not urge upon you any special form of this religion, for I
have in mind its very essence, that which is common to all forms, that which
makes it the power history shows it to have been through all these centuries.
This, as found in the teaching of Jesus, is, in the words of old Hebrew phi-
losophy, the fear of the Lord — i. e., belief in and acceptance of One who has
power to help, even to the uttermost. This step, this position, this opening
of the mind and heart to an influence of the highest spiritual character, will
prove to be the beginning, and indeed, the chief part, of that higher life
which lies before you, that higher life upon which you have already entered,
and in which, we trust, your walk will continue, until there comes the next
step forward — the step that will usher you into the life still higher, the
highest life — the life beyond."

It will be of special interest to notice the position of President Harper
with regard to the significance of the Bible and Biblical criticism in his
pastoral work, for President Harper belongs to the higher critics, and we
may even say that he is one of the boldest among them. It is a matter of
course that he finds the Bible still indispensable, and he mentions the prob-
lems connected with Bible study among the difficulties that beset our path
in trying to realise the higher life in religion. These difficulties to the
scholar are mainly of a purely intellectual, not a moral or typically religious,
nature and do not hinder the honest Christian from realising his ideals.
President Harper says:

"These intellectual difficulties may continue to exist without being
settled in any way, and still one's faith may remain unaffected. Faith in
Jesus Christ and in the living principles of Christianity is not bound up
or in any vital way connected with the outside intellectual difficulties which
are all the while presenting themselves to us. You have your difficulties;
some one else has other difficulties. The result should not and need not
affect one's active Christian life."

Whichever way the intellectual difficulties may be settled, the great fun-
damental principles of the truth will remain standing as on a rock, and a
good Christian will not have his confidence in them shaken. The Bible has

156 TPIE MONTST.

been and will forever remain a book that should be used for instruction and
education, a book that will teach us the truth.

As to Biblical criticism, President Harper says:

"To be sure, I reserve the right for myself to decide that one book of the
collection has more of religious truth in it than another. Who, for example,
would deny that the nineteenth psalm was not more helpful than the first
chapter of Chronicles? I reserve the right also whether this or that book
is really to be taken as one of the collection. Luther exercised this privi-
lege. Why should I not enjoy it also? I reserve the right, still further, to
decide for myself in what way I shall interpret this passage or that. When
I read:

'The mountains skipped like rams,
The little hills like lambs,'

I am at liberty to believe that it is poetry and not to be taken literally. So
likewise when I read,

'Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon,

And thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon !

And the sun stood still and the moon stayed,

Until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies,'

and see that it is poetry, as it is shown to be in the Revised Version, and
that it is obviously quoted from that ancient collection of poetical pieces, the
book of Jasher, I understand that I may believe the Bible, without believing
at the same time that the sun and moon stood still."

"For relief from difficulties of every kind, whether of life or thought;
for a help which may always be obtained ; for a rock on which firm standing-
ground may be gained — go to the Bible; not as to some talisman possessed
of magic power, but as to a book containing story after story which tells of
God's dealings with man; to a book containing precept upon precept, richer
in truth than any other of the world's possessions — a book which will guide
your thought unfailingly to the only source of wisdom, to the source of all
wisdom — to God."

"Every Christian man should face this question: 'Is the Bible what I
have supposed it to be? If so, it is for me to treat it differently, to make it
the subject of systematic study, and, through acquaintance with it, to come
closer to God; to know him better, and, having this knowledge, to realise,
as I have not hitherto realised, my responsibility to my fellow-men.' No man
need ever fear that he will attain too large a knowledge of these sacred
books."

President Harper is a Christian but he believes in an American Chris-
tianity, the Christianity as it is developing in the United States. He con-
cludes his book with this remark :

"Centuries will pass; and gradually humanity will come to recognise the

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES. 157

significance of love; gradually Jesus the Christ will come to reign in the
hearts of men. In this work of educating humanity to understand God and
itself, America is the training school for teachers."

A TREATISE. ON COSMOLOGY. By Herbert Nichols. Vol. I. Introduction.
Cambridge, Mass., 1904. 8vo. Pp. 455. [Copies can be purchased
from the author, 219 Commonwealth Ave., Newton Centre, Mass.
$3-50.]

The first paragraph of Helmholtz's immortal memoir Ueber die Erhal-
tung der Kraft, declares that the proposition that perpetual motion is im-
possible and the proposition that all the phenomena of physics can be ex-
plained by (indeed he says "are due to") attractions and repulsions between
pairs of particles, are "identical," meaning, of course, experimentally iden-
tical. But before many years had flown, it began to be clear to the minds
of most of those who had examined the question that they were so far from
being identical in the phenomena to which they would give rise, that the
proposition about work was true, while the proposition about pairs of par-
ticles was false. It was certain phenomena of the elasticity of crystals which
first brought this conviction to the few who were masters of that difficult
subject. Next, those most significant of all chemical phenomena which are
called the phenomena of the unsymmetrical carbon atom spread the wave of
doubt to a wider circle. But what awakened physicists in general to the
doubt was the difficulty of forming any adequate and purely mechanical or
even hydrodynamical theory of electricity. The problem with which physical
theorists were thus confronted goes by the name of the question of the con-
stitution of matter, though the laws of motion are as much thrown into
question as is the nature of ordinary matter. This question has been the chief
subject of discussion in theoretical physics for many years. Some of the chief
hypotheses which have been propounded for its solution have been the vor-
tex theory, the electron theory, and Hertz's theory of concealed constraints.
In the introductory volume of his Treatise on Cosmology, Dr. Herbert Nichols,
who is already well known as a psychologist of high attainments in physics,
and who here shows himself to be remarkably well-read in German philos-
ophy, produces a new theory in competition with the three we have mentioned.
The exposition of it occupies about a quarter of the volume. This theory,
however, is not confined to matter, but is at once a theory of the constitution
of matter and of the constitution of mind, having a thoroughly monistic
character. It is based upon a philosophy which may fairly be described as
a modification of Wundt's system, and thus gives a pretty fair idea of what
that system would amount to when worked out into physical science. It is
probably from that point of view that it will excite such interest as it may
come to excite. This, however, is not the most interesting part of the volume.

158 THE MONIST.

Considerably more than another quarter of it is occupied with describing in
detail what one may call a list of sensualistic categories. These are Quality,
Quantity, Changeableness, Lawfulness, Presentativeness, and Personality.
This is the part of the work which has most interested the reviewer (who
is decidedly opposed to the author's nominalistic sensationalism, and less
decidedly to parallelism,) and which seems to him to show very considerable
power, although little of an analytic kind. But for the consideration that
the kind of power shown is not that which is most needed, it might be rated
much higher. But even from the author's point of view the reviewer would
expunge Quantity and add a category in order to have some place in the
system for false notions, which are certainly a part of the phenomena of
mind. But it is truly astonishing that a man should be so blinded by his
theory as to declare that "by no power of imagination can we conceive of
any similarity whatever" between any two of his six categories. (This seems
to be the meaning, although the precise words quoted are only applied to
one pair.)

A little less than a quarter of the volume is occupied with a "Historical
Review of Cosmology within Philosophy," meaning, mainly, German philos-
ophy. This shows thorough learning, is agreeably written, and will prove
instructive to physicists as well as to others who are not well read in phi-
losophy.

As the doctrine is a modification of Wundt's system, so the method may
be said to apply a modification of Wundt's logic. But it is to be feared that
it will afford more comfort to Wundt's logical opponents than to his friends,
if any application is acknowledged. If we might indulge in a little parody,
we should say the form of syllogism seemed to be as follows :
Anaxagoras said A,
Wundt says B;
Ergo, I will risk saying C.

However, this introductory volume only sets forth a hypothesis; and it
is to be hoped that the main body of the work will subject this to the se-
verest experimental tests. It is, at any rate, certain that such sincere and
single-hearted work must do much to bring the day when philosophy shall
have entered upon the course of a true and progressive science; and from
that point of view we must acknowledge that, be its errors what they may,
it is certain to be a source of benefits to mankind. CUSP.

KOHELET ODER WELTSCHMERZ IN DER BiBEL. Ein Lieblingsbuch Friedrichs
des Grossen. Verdeutscht und erklart von Paul Haupt. Leipsic: J.
C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung. 1905. Pp. vii, 36.
Prof. Paul Haupt, the editor of the Polychrome Bible, of which so far all

of the Hebrew texts but six volumes only of the English translation have

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES. 159

appeared, here offers a German translation of Koheleth or Ecclesiastes, being
a new translation, quite literal and yet imitating the poetical original even
in details.

Our readers, even those who are not Hebrew scholars, may know that
Koheleth is one of the latest productions of the Biblical canon, written by
some Hebrew thinker deeply imbued with Greek thought, and through his
knowledge of Greek philosophy the author must have imbibed also much of
Eastern philosophy, be it Buddhist or Brahmanic. The book became very
popular among the Jews, so much so that the orthodox priests to whose
views it was diametrically opposed were compelled to incorporate it into the
canon. The pessimism was so natural, and the sentiments of the Koheleth
appealed so strongly to the Jews of that age that the book could not be sup-
pressed, but in order to conciliate the broad spirit of the Koheleth with the
narrowness of Jewish orthodoxy, some orthodox redactor added to the
author's philosophy some comments of his own which should give to these
radical thoughts a gentler turn that would show them in the light of an
orthodox interpretation.

Profesor Haupt has published those passages of Koheleth which form
the original text in a connected order and relegates the priestly addition to
footnotes. In this way we are enabled to grasp at once the original sense,
and a little reflection teaches us why the domatic counter-statements cannot
be ascribed to the same pen as the main body of the text.

The critical and historical notes are very terse but quite sufficient, and
so the little book will not only be welcome to the specialist, but also to that
large class of readers who take an interest in a rational study of the Bible.

p. c.

LAZARUS, DER BEGRUNDER DER VOLKERPSYCHOLOGIE. By Dr. Alfred Leicht.
Leipsic: Diirr'sche Buchhandlung. 1904. Pp. in. Price, Mark 1.20.
Professor Lazarus, the founder of Volkerpsychologie, i. e., folk psychol-
ogy or psychology of nations, was born September 15, 1824, and, had he not
died a short time ago, would this year have celebrated his eightieth birth-
day. In his honor the present booklet has been written by Dr. Alfred Leicht,
who sets forth his merits as the founder of an important branch of science,
the psychology of nations, and substantiates the claim by rehearsing the
story of his life as well as his labors. The principles which Professor Laza-
rus has established are now generally acknowledged, but in his days he had
to fight for their recognition. Even such a liberal and broad man as Eduard
von Hartmann claims that the existence of a national psychology depended
upon the existence of a national soul, and that the national soul was im-
possible except on the assumption of a metaphysical unity and substantiality
of the collective spirit of a nation. Without such a substratum Hartmann

l6o THE MONIST.

deemed the existence of a national soul impossible, but Lazarus insists that
the assumption of a metaphysical soul unit is redundant and even inadmis-
sible, and that the psychology of a nation exists by the very truth of a com-
munal will. If the nations existed in metaphysical entities, humanity would
throughout be cut up into several antagonistic beings, but, as a matter of fact,
the only reason for antagonism among the nations originates by a contrast
of their wills, not by a difference of soul substrata. The quality of things
consists in their activity not in any metaphysical essence. What a thing in
itself may be (except what it is in its activity) is an illegitimate question.
In order to characterise the significance of Lazarus's work we ought to
consider the influence which he exercised upon the different domains of
science. The recognition he found in theology possesses a greater signifi-
cance in consideration of the fact that he was a Jew. His philosophical com-
prehension is sufficiently indicated by the honor which the University of
Halle conferred upon him by renewing his Doctor's diploma. He stimulated
historical research and his labors were especially suggestive to jurisprudence.
A great honor was bestowed upon him by his co-religionists when the Hebrew
Union College of Cincinnati introduced his ethical lectures for official reading
and the faculty of this institution conferred upon him the honorary degree
of Doctor of Divinity.

VOLKERPSYCHOLOCIE. Eine Untcrsuchung der Entwicklungsgesetze von
Sprache, Mythus und Sitte. By Wilhelm Wundt. Leipsic: Wilhelm
Engelmann. 1904. Pp. xv, 667.

Professor Wundt, who has been so indefatigable in working out a phil-
osophical system for all the several fields connected with psychology, and
method, brings out a second edition of his Volkerpsychologie, which has
been revised and enriched by several additions.. The first folio only lies
before us containing Wundt's speculations on language in all its phases and
formations, gesture, speech, and word formation. When the whole work
lies before us we intend to give a more complete review of Wundt's views.

(The second volume just reached us when we were preparing the pres-
ent number for publication.)

LEIBNIZENS APRIORISMUS IM VERHALTNIS zu SEINER METAPHYSIC. By Dr.

A. Silberstein. Beilin: Mayer & Muller. 1904.

The author lias taken a Doctor's degree on this study of Leibnitz's
apriorism, and he here republishes his dissertation, adding thereto his criti-
cism of Dr. Ernst Cassirer with whose views concerning Leibnitz's system
he does not agree. The main result of the pamphlet seems to be that Leib-
nitz has anticipated Kant more than is generally believed, and his standpoint
may be characterised as "critical apriorism."

VOL. XV. APRIL, 1905. No. 2.

THE MONIST

WHAT PRAGMATISM IS.

THE writer of this article has been led by much experience to
believe that every physicist, and every chemist, and, in short,
every master in any department of experimental science, has had
his mind moulded by his life in the laboratory to a degree that is
little suspected. The experimentalist himself can hardly be fully
aware of it, for the reason that the men whose intellects he really
knows about are much like himself in this respect. With intellects
of widely different training from his own, whose education has
largely been a thing learned out of books, he will never become in-
wardly intimate, be he on ever so familiar terms with them; for
he and they are as oil and water, and though they be shaken up
together, it is remarkable how quickly they will go their several
mental ways, without having gained more than a faint flavor from
the association. Were those other men only to take skilful sound-
ings of the experimentalist's mind, — which is just what they are un-
qualified to do, for the most part, — they would soon discover that,
excepting perhaps upon topics where his mind is trammelled by
personal feeling or by his bringing up, his disposition is to think
of everything just as everything is thought of in the laboratory,
that is, as a question of experimentation. Of course, no living
man possesses in their fullness all the attributes characteristic of
his type: it is not the typical doctor whom you will see every day
driven in buggy or coupe, nor is it the typical pedagogue that will
be met with in the first school-room you enter. But when you have
found, or ideally constructed upon a basis of observation, the typ-

l62 THE MONIST.

ical experimentalist, you will find that whatever assertion you may
make to him, he will either understand as meaning that if a given
prescription for an experiment ever can be and ever is carried out
in act, an experience of a given description will result, or else he
will see no sense at all in what you say. If you talk to him as
Mr. Balfour talked not long ago to the British Association, saying
that "the physicist seeks for something deeper than the laws con-
necting possible objects of experience," that "his object is a phys-
ical reality" unrevealed in experiments, and that the existence of
such non-experiential reality "is the unalterable faith of science,"
to all such ontological meaning you will find the experimentalist
mind to be color-blind. What adds to that confidence in this which
the writer owes to his conversations with experimentalists is that
he himself may almost be said to have inhabited a laboratory from
the age of six until long past maturity; and having all his life as-
sociated mostly with experimentalists, it has always been with a
confident sense of understanding them and of being understood by
them.

That laboratory life did not prevent the writer (who here and
in what follows simply exemplifies the experimentalist type) from
becoming interested in methods of thinking; and when he came to
read metaphysics, although much of it seemed to him loosely rea-
soned and determined by accidental prepossessions, yet in the writ-
ings of some philosophers, especially Kant, Berkeley, and Spinoza,
he sometimes came upon strains of thought that recalled the ways
of thinking of the laboratory, so that he felt he might trust to
them: all of which has been true of other laboratory-men.

Endeavoring, as a man of that type naturally would, to formu-
late what he so approved, he framed the theory that a conception,
that is, the rational purport of a word or other expression, lies ex-
clusively in its conceivable bearing upon the conduct of life ; so
that, since obviously nothing that might not result from experiment
can have any direct bearing upon conduct, if one can define accu-
rately all the conceivable experimental phenomena which the affir-
mation or denial of a concept could imply, one will have therein a
complete definition of the concept, and there is absolutely nothing

WHAT PRAGMATISM IS. 163

more in it. For this doctrine he invented the name pragmatism.
Some of his friends wished him to call it practicism or practicalism
(perhaps on the ground that irpaxTtKos is better Greek than Trpay/iart-
K09). But for one who had learned philosophy out of Kant, as
the writer, along with nineteen out of every twenty experimentalists
who have turned to philosophy, had done, and who still thought in
Kantian terms most readily, praktisch and pragmatisch were as far
apart as the two poles, the former belonging in a region of thought
where no mind of the experimentalist type can ever make sure of
solid ground under his feet, the latter expressing relation to some
definite human purpose. Now quite the most striking feature of
the new theory was its recognition of an inseparable connection be-
tween rational cognition and rational purpose; and that considera-
tion it was which determined the preference for the name prag-
matism.

Concernihg the matter of philosophical nomenclature, there
are a few plain considerations, which the writer has for many years
longed to submit to the deliberate judgment of those few fellow-
students of philosophy, who deplore the present state of that study,
and who are intent upon rescuing it therefrom and bringing it to
a condition like that of the natural sciences, where investigators,
instead of contemning each the work of most of the others as mis-
directed from beginning to end, co-operate, stand upon one an-
other's shoulders, and multiply incontestible results; where every
observation is repeated, and isolated observations go for little ;
where every hypothesis that merits attention is subjected to severe
but fair examination, and only after the predictions to which it
leads have been remarkably borne out by experience is trusted at
all, and even then only provisionally; where a radically false step
is rarely taken, even the most faulty of those theories which gain
wide credence being true in their main experiential predictions. To
those students, it is submitted that no study can become scientific
in the sense described, until it provides itself with a suitable tech-
nical nomenclature, whose every term has a single definite mean-

164 THE MONIST.

ing universally accepted among students of the subject, and whose
vocables have no such sweetness or charms as might tempt loose
writers to abuse them, — which is a virtue of scientific nomenclature
too little appreciated. It is submitted that the experience of those
sciences which have conquered the greatest difficulties of terminol-
ogy, which are unquestionably the taxonomic sciences, chemistry,
mineralogy, botany, zoology, has conclusively shown that the one
only way in which the requisite unanimity and requisite rup-
tures with individual habits and preferences can be brought about
is so to shape the canons of terminology that they shall gain the
support of moral principle and of every man's sense of decency ;
and that, in particular, (under defined restrictions,) the general
feeling shall be that he who introduces a new conception into
philosophy is under an obligation to invent acceptable terms to
express it, and that when he has done so, the duty of his fellow-
students is to accept those terms, and to resent any wresting of
them from their original meanings, as not only a gross discourtesy
to him to whom philosophy was indebted for each conception, but
also as an injury to philosophy itself; and furthermore, that once
a conception has been supplied with suitable and sufficient words
for its expression, no other technical terms denoting the same things,
considered in the same relations, should be countenanced. Should
this suggestion find favor, it might be deemed needful that the
philosophians in congress assembled should adopt, after due delib-
eration, convenient canons to limit the application of the principle.
Thus, just as is done in chemistry, it might be wise to assign fixed
meanings to certain prefixes and suffixes. For example, it might
be agreed, perhaps, that the prefix prope- should mark a broad and
rather indefinite extension of the meaning of the term to which it
was prefixed ; the name of a doctrine would naturally end in -ism,
while -icism might mark a more strictly defined acception of that
doctrine, etc. Then again, just as in biology no account is taken
of terms antedating Linnaeus, so in philosophy it might be found
best not to go back of the scholastic terminology. To illustrate
another sort of limitation, it has probably never happened that any
philosopher has attempted to give a general name to his own doc-

WHAT PRAGMATISM IS. 165

trine without that name's soon acquiring in common philosophical
usage, a signification much broader than was originally intended.
Thus, special systems go by the names Kantianism, Benthamism,
Comtianism, Spencerianism, etc., while transcendentalism, utili-
tarianism, positivism, evolutionism, synthetic philosophy, etc. have
irrevocably and very conveniently been elevated to broader govern-
ments.

After awaiting in vain, for a good many years, some particu-
larly opportune conjuncture of circumstances that might serve to
recommend his notions of the ethics of terminology, the writer has
now, at last, dragged them in over head and shoulders, on an oc-
casion when he has no specific proposal to offer nor any feeling but
satisfaction at the course usage has run without any canons or
resolutions of a congress. His word "pragmatism" has gained
general recognition in a generalised sense that seems to argue
power of growth and vitality. The famed psychologist, James,
first took it up, seeing that his "radical empiricism" substantially
answered to the writer's definition of pragmatism, albeit with a cer-
tain difference in the point of view. Next, the admirably clear
and brilliant thinker, Mr. Ferdinand C. S. Schiller, casting about
for a more attractive name for the "anthropomorphism" of his
Riddle of the Sphinx, lit, in that most remarkable paper of his on
Axioms as Postulates, upon the same designation "pragmatism,"
which in its original sense was in generic agreement with his own
doctrine, for which he has since found the more appropriate speci-
fication "humanism," while he still retains "pragmatism" in a some-
what wider sense. So far all went happily. But at present, the
word begins to be met with occasionally in the literary journals,
where it gets abused in the merciless way that words have to ex-
pect when they fall into literary clutches. Sometimes the manners
of the British have effloresced in scolding at the word as ill-chosen,
— ill-chosen, that is, to express some meaning that it was rather
designed to exclude. So then, the writer, finding his bantling
"pragmatism" so promoted, feels that it is time to kiss his child

l66 THE MONIST.

good-by and relinquish it to its higher destiny ; while to serve the
precise purpose of expressing the original definition, he begs to an-
nounce the birth of the word "pragmaticism," which is ugly enough
to be safe from kidnappers.2

Much as the writer has gained from the perusal of what other
pragmatists have written, he still thinks there is a decisive advan
tage in his original conception of the doctrine. From this origina
form every truth that follows from any of the other forms can be
deduced, while some errors can be avoided into which other prag
matists have fallen. The original view appears, too, to be a more
compact and unitary conception than the others. But its capita
merit, in the writer's eyes, is that it more readily connects itsel
with a critical proof of its truth. Quite in accord with the logica
order of investigation, it usually happens that one first forms an
hypothesis that seems more and more reasonable the further one
examines into it, but that only a good deal later gets crowned witl
an adequate proof. The present writer having had the pragmatis
theory under consideration for many years longer than most of it
adherents, would naturally have given more attention to the proo
of it. At any rate, in endeavoring to explain pragmatism, he may
be excused for confining himself to that form of it that he know
best. In the present article there will be space only to explain jus
what this doctrine, (which, in such hands as it has now fallen into
may probably play a pretty prominent part in the philosophical dis
cussions of the next coming years,) really consists in. Should the
exposition be found to interest readers of The Monist, they wouk
certainly be much more interested in a second article which wouk
give some samples of the manifold applications of pragmaticism (as
suming it to be true) to the solution of problems of different kinds
After that, readers might be prepared to take an interest in a proo

*To show how recent the general use of the word "pragmatism" is, th
writer may mention that, to the best of his belief, he never used it in copj
for the press before to-day, except by particular request, in Baldwin's Die
tionary. Toward the end of 1890, when this part of the Century Dictionary
appeared, he did not deem that the word had sufficient status to appear it
that work. But he has used it continually in philosophical conversation since,
perhaps, the mid-seventies.

WHAT PRAGMATISM IS. 167

that the doctrine is true, — a proof which seems to the writer to
leave no reasonable doubt on the subject, and to be the one contri-
bution of value that he has to make to philosophy. For it would
essentially involve the establishment of the truth of synechism.

The bare definition of pragmaticism could convey no satisfactory
comprehension of it to the most apprehensive of minds, but re-
quires the commentary to be given below. Moreover, this defini-
tion takes no notice of one or two other doctrines without the pre-
vious acceptance (or virtual acceptance) of which pragmaticism itself
would be a nullity. They are included as a part of the pragmatism
of Schiller, but the present writer prefers not to mingle different
propositions. The preliminary propositions had better be stated
forthwith.

The difficulty in doing this is that no formal list of them has
ever been made. They might all be included under the vague
maxim, "Dismiss make-believes." Philosophers, of very diverse
stripes propose that philosophy shall take its start from one or another
state of mind in which no man, least of all a beginner in philosophy,
actually is. One proposes that you shall begin by doubting every-
thing, and says that there is only one thing that you cannot doubt,
as if doubting were "as easy as lying." Another proposes that we
should begin by observing "the first impressions of sense," for-
getting that our very percepts are the results of cognitive elabo-
ration. But in truth, there is but one state of mind from which
you can "set out," namely, the very state of mind in which you
actually find yourself at the time you do "set out," — a state in which
you are laden with an immense mass of cognition already formed,
of which you cannot divest yourself if you would ; and who knows
whether, if you could, you would not have made all knowledge
impossible to yourself? Do you call it doubting to write down on
a piece of paper that you doubt? If so, doubt has nothing to do with
any serious business. But do not make believe ; if pedantry has not
eaten all the reality out of you, recognise, as you must, that there
is much that you do not doubt, in the least. Now that which you
do not at all doubt, you must and do regard as infallible, absolute
truth. Here breaks in Mr. Make Believe: "What! Do you mean

l68 THE MONIST.

to say that one is to believe what is not true, or that what a man
does not doubt is ipso facto true?" No, but unless he can make a
thing white and black at once, he has to regard what he does not
doubt as absolutely true. Now you, per hypothesiu, are that man.
"But you tell me there are scores of things I do not doubt. I really
cannot persuade myself that there is not some one of them about
which I am mistaken." You are adducing one of your make-believe
facts, which, even if it were established, would only go to show
that doubt has a limen, that is, is only called into being by a certain
finite stimulus. You only puzzle yourself by talking of this meta-
physical "truth" and metaphysical "falsity," that you know nothing
about. All you have any dealings with are your doubts and beliefs,3
with the course of life that forces new beliefs upon you and gives
you power to doubt old beliefs. If your terms " truth" and "fal-
sity" are taken in such senses as to be definable in terms of doubt
and belief and the course of experience, (as for example they would
be, if you were to define the "truth" as that to a belief in which
belief would tend if it were to tend indefinitely toward absolute
fixity,) well and good: in that case, you are only talking about
doubt and belief. But if by truth and falsity you mean something
not definable in terms of doubt and belief in any way, then you are
talking of entities of whose existence you can know nothing, and
which Ockham's razor would clean shave off. Your problems
would be greatly simplified, if, instead of saying that you want to
know the "Truth," you were simply to say that you want to attain
a state of belief unassailable by doubt.

Belief is not a momentary mode of consciousness ; it is a habit
of mind essentially enduring for some time, and mostly (at least)
unconscious; and like other habits, it is, (until it meets with some
surprise that begins its dissolution,) perfectly self-satisfied. Doubt
is of an altogether contrary genus. It is not a habit, but the priva-
tion of a habit. Now a privation of a habit, in order to be anything

* It is necessary to say that "belief" is throughout used merely as the
name of the contrary to doubt, without regard to grades of certainty nor to
the nature of the proposition held for true, i. e. "believed."

WHAT PRAGMATISM IS. 169

at all, must be a condition of erratic activity that in some way must
get superseded by a habit.

Among the things which the reader, as a rational person, does
not doubt, is that he not merely has habits, but also can exert a
measure of self-control over his future actions ; which means, how-
ever, not that he can impart to them any arbitrarily assignable
character, but, on the contrary, that a process of self-preparation
will tend to impart to action, (when the occasion for it shall arise,)
one fixed character, which is indicated and perhaps roughly mea-
sured by the absence (or slightness) of the feeling of self-reproach,
which subsequent reflection will induce. Now, this subsequent re^
flection is part of the self -preparation .for artirm nn thp np-xt occa-
sion. Consequently, there is a tendency, as action is repeated again
and again, for the action to approximate indefinitely toward the
perfection of that fixed character, which would be marked by entire
absence of self-reproach. The more closely this is approached, the
less room for self-control there will be; and where no self-control
is possible there will be no self-reproach.

These phenomena seem to be the fundamental characteristics
which distinguish a rational being. Blame, in every case, appears
to be a modification, often accomplished by a transference, or "pro-
jection," of the primary feeling of self-reproach. Accordingly, we
never blame anybody for what had been beyond his power of pre-
vious self-control. Now, thinking is a species of conduct which is
largely subject to self-control. In all their features, (which there
is no room to describe here,) logical self-control is a perfect mirror
of ethical self-control, — unless it be rather a species under that
genus. In accordance with this, what you cannot in the least help
believing is not, justly speaking, wrong belief. In other words,
for you it is the absolute truth. True, it is conceivable that what
you cannot help believing to-day, you might find you thoroughly
disbelieve to-morrow. But then there is a certain distinction be-
tween things you "cannot" do, merely in the sense that nothing
stimulates you to the great effort and endeavors that would be re-
quired, and things you cannot do because in their own nature they
are insusceptible of being put into practice. In every stage of your

I7O THE MONIST.

excogitations, there is something of which you can only say, "I
cannot think otherwise," and your experientially based hypothesis
is that the impossibility is of the second kind.

There is no reason why "thought," in what has just been said,
should be taken in that narrow sense in which silence and darkness
are favorable to thought. It should rather be understood as covering
all rational life, so that an experiment shall be an operation of
thought. Of course, that ultimate state of habit to which the action
of self-control ultimately tends, where no room is left for further
self-control, is, in the case of thought, the state of fixed belief, or
perfect knowledge.

Two things here are all-important to assure oneself of and to
remember. The first is that ajerson is not Absolutely an individual
His thoughts are what he is "saying to himself," that is, is saying
to that other self that is just coming into life in the flow of time.
When one reasons, it is that critical self that one is trying to per-
suade; and all thought whatsoever is a sign, and is mostly of the
nature of language. The second thing to remember is that the man's
circle of society, (however widely or narrowly this phrase may be
understood,) is a sort of loosely compacted person^ in some respects
of_higher rank than the person of an Individual ^rgan'sm It is
these two things alone that render it possible for you, — but only in
the abstract, and in a Pickwickian sense, — to distinguish between
absolute truth and what you do not doubt.

Let us now hasten to the exposition of pragmaticism itself. Here
it will be convenient to imagine that somebody to whom the doctrine
is new, but of rather preternatural perspicacity, asks questions of
a pragmaticist. Everything that might give a dramatic illusion must
be stripped off, so that the result will be a sort of cross between a
dialogue and a catechism, but a good deal liker the latter, — some-
thing rather painfully reminiscent of Mangnall's Historical Ques-
tions.

Questioner: I am astounded at your definition of your prag-
matism, because only last year I was assured by a person above all
suspicion of warping the truth, — himself a pragmatist, — that your
doctrine precisely was "that a conception is to be tested by its prac-

WHAT PRAGMATISM IS. I/I

tical effects." You must surely, then, have entirely changed your
definition very recently.

Pragmatist : If you will turn to Vols. VI and VII of the Revue
Philosophique, or to the Popular Science Monthly for November
1877 and January 1878, you will be able to judge for yourself
whether the interpretation you mention was not then clearly ex-
cluded. The exact wording of the English enunciation, (changing
only the first person into the second,) was: "Consider what effects
that might conceivably have practical bearings you conceive the
object of your conception to have. Then your conception of those
effects is the WHOLE of your conception of the object."

Questioner: Well, what reason have you for asserting that this
is so?

Pragmatist: That is what I specially desire to tell you. But
the question had better be postponed until you clearly understand
what those reasons profess to prove.

Questioner: What, then, is the raison d'etre of the doctrine?
What advantage is expected from it?

Pragmatist: It will serve to show that almost every proposition
of ontological metaphysics is either meaningless gibberish, — one
word being defined by other words, and they by still others, without
any real conception ever being reached, — or else is downright ab-
surd ; so that all such rubbish being swept away, what will remain
of philosophy will be a series of problems capable of investigation
by the observational methods of the true sciences, — the truth about
which can be reached without those interminable misunderstandings
and disputes which have made the highest of the positive sciences
a mere amusement for idle intellects, a sort of chess, — idle pleas-
ure its purpose, and reading out of a book its method. In this
regard, pragmaticism is a species of prope-positivism. But what dis-
tinguishes it from other species is, first, its retention of a purified
philosophy; secondly, its full acceptance of the main body of our
instinctive beliefs ; and thirdly, its strenuous insistence upon the
truth of scholastic realism, (or a close approximation to that, well-
stated by the late Dr. Francis Ellingwood Abbot in the Introduction
to his Scientific Theism). So, instead of merely jeering at meta-

T/2 THE MONIST.

physics, like other prope-positivists, whether by long drawn-out paro-
dies or otherwise, the pragmaticist extracts from it a precious es-
sence, which will serve to give life and light to cosmology and
physics. At the same time, the moral applications of the doctrine
are positive and potent; and there are many other uses of it not
easily classed. On another occasion, instances may be given to
show that it really has these effects.

Questioner: I hardly need to be convinced that your doctrine
would wipe out metaphysics. Is it not as obvious that it must wipe
out every proposition of science and everything that bears on the
conduct of life? For you say that the only meaning that, for you,
any assertion bears is that a certain experiment has resulted in a
certain way: Nothing else but an experiment enters into the
meaning. Tell me, then, how can an experiment, in itself, reveal
anything more than that something once happened to an individual
object and that subsequently some other individual event occurred?

Pragmatist: That question is, indeed, to the purpose, — the pur-
pose being to correct any misapprehensions of pragmaticism. You
speak of an experiment in itself, emphasising "in itself." You
evidently think of each experiment as isolated from every other.
It has not, for example, occurred to you, one might venture to sur-
mise, that every connected series of experiments constitutes a single
collective experiment. What are the essential ingredients of an
experiment? First, of course, an experimenter of flesh and blood.
Secondly, a verifiable hypothesis. This is a proposition* relating
to the universe environing the experimenter, or to some well-known
part of it and affirming or denying of this only some experimental
possibility or impossibility. The third indispensable ingredient is
a sincere doubt in the experimenter's mind as to the truth of that

4 The writer, like most English logicians, invariably uses the word prop-
osition, not as the Germans define their equivalent, Satz, as the language-
expression of a judgment (Urtheil), but as that which is related to any
assertion, whether mental and self-addressed or outwardly expressed, just
as any possibility is related to its actualisation. The difficulty of the, at best,
difficult problem of the essential nature of a Proposition has been increased,
for the Germans, by their Urtheil, confounding, under one designation, the
mental assertion with the assertible.

WHAT PRAGMATISM IS. 173

hypothesis. Passing over several ingredients on which we need not
dwell, the purpose, the plan, and the resolve, we come to the act of
choice by which the experimenter singles out certain identifiable
objcts to be operated upon. The next is the external (or quasi-
external) ACT by which he modifies those objects. Next, comes the
subsequent reaction of the world upon the experimenter in a per-
ception; and finally, his recognition of the teaching of the experi-
ment. While the two chief parts of the event itself are the action
and the reaction, yet the unity of essence of the experiment lies in its
purpose and plan, the ingredients passed over in the enumeration.

Another thing: in representing the pragmaticist as making ra-
tional meaning to consist in an experiment, (which you speak of
as an event in the past,) you strikingly fail to catch his attitude of
mind. Indeed, it is not in an experiment, but in experimental phe-
nomena, that rational meaning is said to consist. When an experi-
mentalist speaks of a phenomenon, such as "Hall's phenomenon,"
"Zeemann's phenomenon" and its modification, "Michelson's phenom-
enon," or "the chess-board phenomenon," he does not mean any
particular event that did happen to somebody in the dead past, but
what surely will happen to everybody in the living future who shall
fulfil certain conditions. The phenomenon consists in the fact that
when an experimentalist shall come to act according to a certain
scheme that he has in mind, then will something else happen, and
shatter the doubts of sceptics, like the celestial fire upon the altar
of Elijah.

And do not overlook the fact that the pragmaticist maxim says
nothing of single experiments or of single experimental phenomena,
(for what is conditionally true in futuro can hardly be singular,)
but only speaks of general kinds of experimental phenomena. Its
adherent does not shrink from speaking of general objects as real,
since whatever is true represents a real. Now the laws of nature
are true.

The rational meaning of every proposition lies in the future.
How so ? The meaning of a proposition is itself a proposition. In-
deed, it is no other than the very proposition of which it is the mean-
ing : it is a translation of it. But of the myriads of forms into which

174 THE MONIST.

a proposition may be translated, what is that one which is to be
called its very meaning? It is, according to the pragmaticist, that
form in which the proposition becomes applicable to human con-
duct, not in these or those special circumstances, nor when one enter-
tains this or that special design, but that form which is most directly
applicable to self-control under every situation, and to every pur-
pose. This is why he locates the meaning in future time ; for future
conduct is the only conduct that is subject to self-control. But in
order that that form of the proposition which is to be taken as its
meaning should be applicable to every situation and to every pur-
pose upon which the proposition has any bearing, it must be simply
the general description of all the experimental phenomena which
the assertion of the proposition virtually predicts. For an experi-
mental phenomenon is the fact asserted by the proposition that ac-
tion of a certain description will have a certain kind of experimental
result ; and experimental results are the only results that can affect
human conduct. No doubt, some unchanging idea may come to in-
fluence a man more than it had done ; but only because some experi-
ence equivalent to an experiment has brought its truth home to him
more intimately than before. Whenever a man acts purposively, he
acts under a belief in some experimental phenomenon. Consequently,
the sum of the experimental phenomena that a proposition implies
makes up its entire bearing upon human conduct. Your question,
then, of how a pragmaticist can attribute any meaning to any asser-
tion other than that of a single occurrence is substantially answered.
Questioner: I see that pragmaticism is a thorough-going phe-
nomenalism. Only why should you limit yourself to the phenomena
of experimental science rather than embrace all observational sci-
ence? Experiment, after all, is an uncommunicative informant. It
never expiates : it only answers "yes" or "no" ; or rather it usually
snaps out "No!" or, at best, only utters an inarticulate grunt for
the negation of its "no." The typical experimentalist is not much
of an observer. It is the student of natural history to whom nature
opens the treasury of her confidence, while she treats the cross-
examining experimentalist with the reserve he merits. Why should

WHAT PRAGMATISM IS. 175

your phenomenalism sound the meagre jews-harp of experiment
rather than the glorious organ of observation ?

Pragmaticist : Because pragmaticism is not definable as "thor-
ough-going phenomenalism," although the latter doctrine may be
a kind of pragmatism. The richness of phenomena lies in their
sensuous quality. Pragmaticism does not intend to define the phe-
nomenal equivalents of words and general ideas, but, on the con-
trary, eliminates their sential element, and endeavors to define the
rational purport, and this it finds in the purposive bearing of the
word or proposition in question.

Questioner: Well, if you choose so to make Doing the Be-all
and the End-all of human life, why do you not make meaning to
consist simply in doing? Doing has to be done at a certain time
upon a certain object. Individual objects and single events cover
all reality, as everybody knows, and as a practicalist ought to be
the first to insist. Yet, your meaning, as you have described it, is
general. Thus, it is of the nature of a mere word and not a reality.
You say yourself that your meaning of a proposition is only the
same proposition in another dress. But a practical man's meaning
is the very thing he means. What do you make to be the meaning
of "George Washington"?

Pragmaticist : Forcibly put ! A good half dozen of your points
must certainly be admitted. It must be admitted, in the first place,
that if pragmaticism really made Doing to be the Be-all and the
End-all of life, that would be its death. For to say that we live
for the mere sake of action, as action, regardless of the thought it
carries out, would be to say that there is no such thing as rational
purport. Secondly, it must be admitted that every proposition pro-
fesses to be true of a certain real individual object, often the en-
vironing universe. Thirdly, it must be admitted that pragmaticism
fails to furnish any translation or meaning of a proper name, or
other designation of an individual object. Fourthly, the pragmati-
cistic meaning is undoubtedly general ; and it is equally indisputable
that the general is of the nature of a word or sign. Fifthly, it must
be admitted that individuals alone exist; and sixthly, it may be
admitted that the very meaning of a word or significant object

1/6 THE MONIST.

ought to be the very essence of reality of what it signifies. But
when, those admissions having been unreservedly made, you find
the pragmaticist still constrained most earnestly to deny the force of
your objection, you ought to infer that there is some consideration
that has escaped you. Putting the admissions together, you will
perceive that the pragmaticist grants that a proper name, (although
it is not customary to say that it has a meaning,) has a certain deno-
tative function peculiar, in each case, to that name and its equiva-
lents ; and that he grants that every assertion contains such a deno-
tative or pointing-out function. In its peculiar individuality, the
pragmaticist excludes this from the rational purport of the asser-
tion, although the like of it, being common to all assertions, and so,
being general and not individual, may enter into the pragmaticistic
purport. Whatever exists, ex-sists, that is, really acts upon other ex-
istents, so obtains a self-identity, and is definitely individual. As to
the general, it will be a help to thought to notice that there are two
ways of being general. A statue of a soldier on some village monu-
ment, in his overcoat and with his musket, is for each of a hundred
families the image of its uncle, its sacrifice to the union. That
statue, then, though it is itself single, represents any one man of
whom a certain predicate may be true. It is objectively general.
The word "soldier," whether spoken or written, is general in the
same way; while the name, "George Washington," is not so. But
each of these two terms remains one and the same noun, whether it
be spoken or written, and whenever and wherever it be spoken or
written. This noun is not an existent thing: it is a type, or form,
to which objects, both those that are externally existent and those
which are imagined, may conform, but which none of them can
exactly be. This is subjective generality. The pragmaticistic purport
is general in both ways.

As to reality, one finds it defined in various ways; but if
that principle of terminological ethics that was proposed be accepted,
the equivocal language will soon disappear. For realis and realitas
are not ancient words. They were invented to be terms of philos-
ophy in the thirteenth century, and the meaning they were intended
to express is perfectly clear. That is real which has such and such

WHAT PRAGMATISM IS. 177

characters, whether anybody thinks it to have those characters or
not. At any rate, that is the sense in which the pragmaticist uses
the word. Now, just as conduct controlled by ethical reason tends
toward fixing certain habits of conduct, the nature of which, (as
to illustrate the meaning, peaceable habits and not quarrelsome
habits,) does not depend upon any accidental circumstances, and
in that sense, may be said to be destined; so, thought, controlled
by a rational experimental logic, tends to the fixation of certain
opinions, equally destined, the nature of which will be the same in
the end, however the perversity of thought of whole generations
may cause the postponement of the ultimate fixation. If this be
so, as every man of us virtually assumes that it is, in regard to
each matter the truth of which he seriously discusses, then, according
to the adopted definition of "real," the state of things which will
be believed in that ultimate opinion is real. But, for the most part,
such opinions will be general. Consequently, some general objects
are real. (Of course, nobody ever thought that all generals were
real ; but the scholastics used to assume that generals were real
when they had hardly any, or quite no, experiential evidence to
support their assumption; and their fault lay just there, and not
in holding that generals could be real.) One is struck with the
inexactitude of thought even of analysts of power, when they touch
upon modes of being. One will meet, for example, the virtual as-
sumption that what is relative to thought cannot be real. But why
not, exactly? Red is relative to sight, but the fact that this or that
is in that relation to vision that we call being red is not itself rela-
tive to sight ; it is a real fact.

Not only may generals be real, but they may also be physically
efficient, not in every metaphysical sense, but in the common-sense
acception in which human purposes are physically efficient. Aside
from metaphysical nonsense, no sane man doubts that if I feel the
air in my study to be stuffy, that thought may cause the window to
be opened. My thought, be it granted, was an individual event.
But what determined it to take the particular determination it did,
was in part the general fact that stuffy air is unwholesome, and in
part other Forms, concerning which Dr. Carus has caused so many

178 THE MONIST.

men to reflect to advantage, — or rather, by which, and the general
truth concerning which Dr. Carus's mind was determined to the
forcible enunciation of so much truth. For truths, on the average,
have a greater tendency to get believed than falsities have. Were
it otherwise, considering that there are myriads of false hypotheses
to account for any given phenomenon, against one sole true one
(or if you will have it so, against every true one,) the first step
toward genuine knowledge must have been next door to a miracle.
So, then, when my window was opened, because of the truth that
stuffy air is malsain, a physical effort was brought into existence
by the efficiency of a general and non-existent truth. This has a
droll sound because it is unfamiliar; but exact analysis is with it
and not against it ; and it has besides, the immense advantage of not
blinding us to great facts, — such as that the ideas "justice" and
"truth" are, notwithstanding the iniquity of the world, the mightiest
of the forces that move it. Generality is, indeed, an indispensable
ingredient of reality ; for mere individual existence or actuality with-
out any regularity whatever is a nullity. Chaos is pure nothing

That which any true proposition asserts is real, in the sense
of being as it is regardless of what you or I may think about it
Let this proposition be a general conditional proposition as to the
future, and it is a real general such as is calculated really to in-
fluence human conduct; and such the pragmaticist holds to be the
rational purport of every concept.

Accordingly, the pragmaticist does not make the summum
bonum to consist in action, but makes it to consist in that process
of evolution whereby the existent comes more and more to embody
those generals which were just now said to be destined, which is
what we strive to express in calling them reasonable. In its higher
stages, evolution takes place more and more largely through self-
control, and this gives the pragmaticist a sort of justification for
making the rational purport to be general.

There is much more in elucidation of pragmaticism that might
be said to advantage, were it not for the dread of fatiguing the
reader. It might, for example, have been well to show clearly that
the pragmaticist does not attribute any different essential mode o:

WHAT PRAGMATISM IS. 179

being to an event in the future from that which he would attribute
to a similar event in the past, but only that the practical attitude
of the thinker toward the two is different. It would also have
been well to show that the pragmaticist does not make Forms to
be the only realities in the world, any more than he makes the rea-
sonable purport of a word to be the only kind of meaning there is.
These things are, however, implicitly involved in what has been
said. There is only one remark concerning the pragmaticist's con-
ception of the relation of his formula to the first principles of logic
which need detain the reader.

Aristotle's definition of universal predication, which is usually
designated, (like a papal bull or writ of court, from its opening
words,) as the Dictum de omni, may be translated as follows : "We
call a predication, (be it affirmative or negative,) universal, when,
and only when, there is nothing among the existent individuals to
which the subject affirmatively belongs, but to which the predicate
will not likewise be referred (affirmatively or negatively, according
as the universal predication is affirmative or negative)." The Greek
is : Xeyo/iev TO KO.TO. iravros KaTT/yopeur&K oVav /ni/Sev rj XaySciv TWV TOU
VTTOKeifievov Kaff ov Oa.rf.pov ov \€^6^<rerai' /ecu TO Kara. (j.r)8tvo<i io-avTtos-
The important words "existent individuals" have been introduced
into the translation (which English idiom would not here permit
to be literal) ; but it is plain that existent individuals were what
Aristotle meant. The other departures from literalness only serve
to give modern English forms of expression. Now, it is well known
that propositions in formal logic go in pairs, the two of one pair
being convertible into another by the interchange of the ideas of
antecedent and consequent, subject and predicate, etc. The paral-
lelism extends so far that it is often assumed to be perfect; but it
is not quite so. The proper mate of this sort to the Dictum de omni
is the following definition of affirmative predication: We call a
predication affirmative, (be it universal or particular,) when, and
only when, there is nothing among the sensational effects that be-
long universally to the predicate which will not be, (universally or
particularly, according as the affirmative predication is universal
or particular.) said to belong to the subject. Now, this is sub-

180 THE MONIST.

stantially the essential proposition of pragmaticism. Of course,
its parallelism to the dictum de omni will only be admitted by a per-
son who admits the truth of pragmaticism.

* * *

Suffer me to add one word more on this point. For if one
cares at all to know what the pragmaticist theory consists in, one
must understand that there is no other part of it to which the prag-
maticist attaches quite as much importance as he does to the re-
cognition in his doctrine of the utter inadequacy of action or voli-
tion or even of resolve or actual purpose, as materials out of which
to construct a conditional purpose or the concept of conditional
purpose. Had a purposed article concerning the principle of con-
tinuity and synthetising the ideas of the other articles of a series in
the early volumes of The Monist ever been written, it would have
appeared how, with thorough consistency, that theory involved the
recognition that continuity is an indispensable element of reality,
and that continuity is simply what generality becomes in the logic
of relatives, and thus, like generality, and more than generality,
is an affair of thought, and is the essence of thought. Yet even
in its truncated condition, an extra-intelligent reader might dis-
cern that the theory of those cosmological articles made reality
to consist in something more than feeling and action could sup-
ply, inasmuch as the primeval chaos, where those two elements
were present, was explicitly shown to be pure nothing. Now, the
motive for alluding to that theory just here is, that in this way
one can put in a strong light a position which the pragmaticist
holds and must hold, whether that cosmological theory be ultimately
sustained or exploded, namely, that the third category, — the cate-
gory of thought, representation, triadic relation, mediation, genuine
thirdness, thirdness as such, — is an essential ingredient of reality,
yet does not by itself constitute reality, since this category, (which
in that cosmology appears as the element of habit,) can have no
concrete being without action, as a separate object on which to work
its government, just as action cannot exist without the immediate
being of feeling on which to act. The truth is that pragmaticism
is closely allied to the Hegelian absolute idealism, from which,

WHAT PRAGMATISM IS. l8l

however, it is sundered by its vigorous denial that the third category,
(which Hegel degrades to a mere stage of thinking,) suffices to
make the world, or is even so much as self-sufficient. Had Hegel,
instead of regarding the first two stages with his smile of contempt,
held on to them as independent or distinct elements of the triune
Reality, pragmaticists might have looked up to him as the great
vindicator of their truth. (Of course, the external trappings of his
doctrine are only here and there of much significance.) For prag-
maticism belongs essentially to the triadic class of philosophical
doctrines, and is much more essentially so than Hegelianism is.
(Indeed, in one passage, at least, Hegel alludes to the triadic form
of his exposition as to a mere fashion of dress.)

C. S. PEIRCE.
MILFORD, PA., September, 1904.

POSTSCRIPT. During the last five months, I have met with ref-
erences to several objections to the above opinions, but not having
been able to obtain the text of these objections, I do not think I
ought to attempt to answer them. If gentlemen who attack either
pragmatism in general or the variety of it which I entertain would
only send me copies of what they write, more important readers
they could easily find, but they could find none who would examine
their arguments with a more grateful avidity for truth not yet ap-
prehended, nor any who would be more sensible of their courtesy.

C. S. P.
Feb. 9, 1905.

THE CEPTACLE HYPOTHESIS.

The Law of Ceptade.
Any thing is everything in an inverse
ratio of the power of consciousness to
separate or distinguish itself from the
inseparable or indistinguishable.

r|AHE word "Ceptacle," which is here applied to the hypothesis
-*- proposed, has been coined, out of necessity, in order to ex-
press a new idea or thought. We already have in use the word
"thing," so broad and comprehensive that up to the present time
it has been sufficient, with it, to refer to any existing entity as —
"thing." All philosophy and all science has found this word equal
to its needs. Or, to speak more properly, consciousness has had
no thought broad enough to require a more all inclusive symbol
for any entity. The necessity which calls for the word "Ceptacle"
comes out of the fact that the books at least disclose no law or
principle that will give it vitality. Whoever will give this subject
their thought must have the patience needed to grope for a while
in a dark land until he sees the light which the Ceptacle conception
affords. For nearly twenty years has the writer been trying to
open the way, some few years ago saying the same thing in print,
in a very unsatisfactory way, even as he is now saying it. The
effort must be to comprehend, if it be possible, this truth, that:
there is a principle in nature out of which human consciousness
can develop or evolve that which the word "thing" in its broadest,
most comprehensive and largest possible sense cannot and does
not contain. It is as if we had reached the ultimate limit in any
direction of any "thing," as that word expresses it, and that at

THE CEPTACLE HYPOTHESIS. 183

this limitation of entity this principle accounting for "Ceptacle"
unfolds a beyond.

This Ceptacle principle is to be found in the peculiar nature of
a ratio existing throughout nature, where all is in a state of flux,
or elasticity, and not an equilibrium, as it were, wherein nature is
a relationing or proportioning of relatives which we now know as
"things." The nature of this ratio between relatives is sufficient
to account for any entity as a unit and yet for every entity as
the many; sufficient to establish any difference between any en-
tities and equally sufficient to hold in one unyielding grasp the
whole as an inseparable unity. Whoever follows this "Ceptacle"
thought is expected to go one step beyond any "thing" as now
known, and by an unfolding consciousness of the ratio which any
such "thing" has in its broadest relation, there to find a Ceptacle.

In this particular example given below in an endeavor to
acquaint the reader with the hypothesis, its application is made to
the "thing" called Matter, and the ratio of the relation existing
between Matter and Mind, whereby Matter or Mind while being
"things" in their common acceptance are much more where as
"'Ceptacles" they are being inseparably the same.

If mental or natural philosophy and this Ceptacle Hypothesis
be each true, they must be found consistent at all points where
their application to each other is made ; but, if at any point in the
application they seem not to agree, it must remain to be proven in
which the error exists.

In testing the truth of this Hypothesis, the Ceptacle Principle
involved should be applied to well-settled and accepted facts and
not theories or speculations. Therefore the text-books on the sci-
ence of natural and mental philosophy should be used, and not
books arguing in support of assumed facts not yet scientifically
accepted. It is not even to be assumed that all that has been ac-
cepted by science and incorporated into its text-books is unques-
tionably true, but that these books contain such facts as have been
accepted as representing the consensus of opinion of what is true.

Our question is not what either matter or mind is or how
either material or mental facts are possible; or, being possible, how

184 THE MONIST.

they coincide with this or that theory; but, instead, recognising
that there are material things and mental things which are accepted
as the foundation facts upon which natural and mental science
build themselves and without which there could be no human ex-
perience, our purpose is to learn whether this Hypothesis will make
such accepted facts more reasonable, and make more clear that
problem of "the one and the many" which confronts philosophy.

This Hypothesis does not assert as new the principle that
"things" are related to one another, or are inseparably related,
but that they have that relation in inverse ratio of sameness and
difference; it does make the claim that a thing itself consists of
relatives and is itself a relative, and adds that the nature of the
ratio between these relatives will explain both their Separability
and Inseparability.

Science and philosophy have thus far exhaustively defined a
"thing" as "any separable or distinguishable object of thought,
whatever exists or is conceived to exist as a separate entity whether
actual, possible or imaginary, animate or inanimate, concrete or
abstract, any existence or event." The deduction assumed in this
Hypothesis is that this definition only partially describes any
"thing." To this accepted definition should be added this funda-
mental Ceptacle Principle; that a "thing" consists of relatives and
is itself a relative, where in each relation there is a ratio of differ-
ence between the relatives greater than any given sameness, and
a ratio of sameness greater than any given difference. So that,
completing the definition according to this Hypothesis :

A Ceptacle is any separable or distinguishable object of thought ;
whatever exists or is conceived to exist as a separable entity, whether
actual, possible or imaginary, animate or inanimate, concrete or
abstract, any existence or event; having the further principle de-
termining its nature, that it consists of relatives and is itself a
relative where the ratio between the relatives is from a sameness
greater than any given difference to a ratio where the difference is
greater than any given sameness.

All matter is defined in its broadest sense as occupying space ;
while an idea or thought can not in any sense be defined as occu-

THE CEPTACLE HYPOTHESIS. 185

pying space. Science and philosophy both accept the position that
matter and mind, as two separate entities, differ in this fundamental
fact. Now, these definitions may be accepted as true as far as they
go, and will answer for a partial and superficial purpose in identi-
fying them; but according to our Hypothesis, they can not be so
defined in a scientific and philosophic sense if they are to be tested
in their ultimate truth. It is only a half-truth to say that matter
does, and mind does not occupy space, for while this is true where
the ratio of their difference is a definable or determinable one,
there is a ratio concomitant with this (the other half of the truth)
where they occupy the same space and where the ratio of their
sameness is greater than any given difference. This seems para-
doxical, but it can be explained to reason and will disclose a prin-
ciple of existence applicable to all things.

What can be set up in its own identity as a thing can also be
made to disclose an inhering concomitant which can also set up an
identity of its own which proves to be its antithesis. The principle
in the Hypothesis must be adequate to the unity of difference with-
out its insistence upon an infinity belonging to it too great to
destroy its sameness in any finite expression as any "thing."

Let us illustrate with an orange:

Thus, when we observe a particular round body, of two or
three inches in diameter, of a reddish yellow color, and with a
peculiar unevenness of surface, and awakening certain associations
of taste and smell, instead of being merely conscious of certain im-
pressions, we perceive an orange ; and in doing so we become aware
of an external object, and at the same time we combine into one
idea of that object the shape, and size, and color, and roughness,
and taste, and smell, thinking these not as elements of thought in
our mind, but as belonging to the orange.

Now this orange, as matter, occupies space and has the different
elements of shape, size, roughness, color, acidity, pungency, etc.:
Within the necessary distance is a human being who experiences the

186 THE MONIST.

sensations of seeing, feeling, smelling, and tasting in relation to
the orange.

In the language of science, what can now occur is explained
as follows:

We are not only capable of experiencing these sensations
awakened within us by impressions from without, but we can also,
through such impressions, perceive external objects.

-'fSi '.:;••

That is, science would say that the "we" or "ego," which is
mind and does not occupy space, perceives the orange, which is
matter and does occupy space, and that this ego and this orange
are entirely separate and different, the ego, mind, having no part
in the orange matter space, and the orange matter having no pos-
sible part in the conscious "we" or "ego" that is perceiving it. That
each in its last analysis, and in the principle which will account for
its nature as a thing, is definable and determinable as separate from
the other.

To which this Hypothesis dissents and replies: Granting, as
true, for this case, and as is perfectly permissible, that the orange
was, before any human being saw it or knew it to be, that it was
possessed of all of its elements of shape, size, color, roughness,
acidity, and odor, that these were "being," related to each other
in a given order in space, occupying the whole of that orange space,
in that particular manner which gave it that particular shape, size,
roughness, etc., or in other words, this space held a particular de-
gree of color, acidity, odor, etc., which made this particular orange ;
that it was also being in its relation to other things surrounding
it ; that it was having its duration in time as related to past, present,
and possible future ; that all this was true of this orange up to the
instant that the human ego enters upon our problem ; now, with the
coming of this ego, what occurs? First another form of matter,
consisting of the human body, enters as a factor — it is itself matter,
occupying space, and in that respect only differs from the orange
in the kind of matter. It possesses the added phenomenon of be-
ing in a peculiar way impressionable, of being acted upon from with-
out. This body, "as matter," is not the "ego," which thinks and

THE CEPTACLE HYPOTHESIS. 187

has ideas, although it seems to be an unquestioned fact that the
body is a necessity to the ideas, and thoughts, and perceptions, and
that whatever the ego is, it is through and with the body that it
is capable of experiencing sensation, which is awakened within the
body by impressions from without the body, and that it can also,
through such impressions, perceive that external object (the or-
ange), and perceive it, not as within but as external to the body.

In the perceiving of this external object, the orange, what oc-
curs, as nearly as science enables us to answer, is this: The body
is capable of being impressed by contact with the elements of the
orange through the intervening material mediums accounting for
feeling, which feeling is diversified into touch, taste, sight, and
smell, but so far as this contact in itself is concerned, it is but a
contact of one form of matter with another. It is only as it re-
sults in experience, sensation and perception that becomes ideas and
thoughts. It is true that it does result in these, but when it does
so result, what does this experience, these sensations, and this per-
ceived orange prove to be as these ideas and thoughts ? The orange
in its own identity, as a material thing, as it was having its being,
before it was related in any way to this thinking phenomenon, was
in no wise dependent upon it for its own entity. It was being its
several elements of form, size, unevenness of surface, and those
accounting for its color, taste, pungency in their relation to each
other in the space they occupied independent of any ego. It was
being an entity of single separate elements in space in the form or
fact of an occupancy of that orange space. It was being this par-
ticular orange thing also as a spatial fact related to its environment.
It was so existing without a human being in any relation to it at
all. Upon the coming into this relation, however, of a human
body and with it the phenomena, sensation, impression, perception,
expression, consciousness, as ideas and thought, what has actually
occurred? What has been added to creative expression? For our
reply we again accept the best scientific statements upon the struc-
ture of the mind.

The human faculties are capable of experiencing sensations
awakened by impressions resulting from the contact or merger of

l88 THE MONIST.

exterior matter with that of the human body. This exterior mat-
ter, in this case the orange, being a unity of elements in the sense
that they occupy a given space, but incapable in this condition as
that orange apart from that human relation of being more than its
separate elements in a material unity in that particular space, the
phenomenon which develops with this human is the capability,
the possibility of that unity consciously knowing its unity by con-
sciously being the process or activity of unifying itself. Here the
unrealised capability has actually become, is being by being a knowl-
edge of the process of unity unifying its elements. Ideas which
are thoughts in this process think this orange as the orange itself,
external to that human body, thinking them as in the source that
awakened the impressions. This process is itself now as real as
that material was before this evolution. The activity which ex-
presses itself now as the unifying consciousness of that material
unity is enabled to become such by an enlarged relation of the
orange, reaching out to where it includes the human phenomenon.
Consciousness thereby becomes. What already has been as possi-
bility before this consciousness is now become itself as this new
phenomenon, which proves to be the orange itself in a larger rela-
tion which has unfolded the real existence of these orange elements
and their unity. This real existence was a necessity to the orange
before the human relation entered. Its conscious realisation is es-
sential only to the human phenomenon. The consciousness of real
existence is what has evolved. It is these experienced sensations
of which the orange is an example which constitute human being.
and this orange experienced in this particular instance is the spatial
dimension and phase of that being.

The different element attributes of the orange, its color, rough-
ness, form, size, and whatever else is needed of material elements
to make it what it is, make it an orange without human conscious-
ness being a necessity to it. It can be and is unified by the principle
of being its own relatives, but when human consciousness does
become a relative, it evolves one of these heretofore unevolved
relatives into its difference through a new phenomenon. The in-
telligence that is attributed ordinarily to consciousness only is not

THE CEPTACLE HYPOTHESIS. 189

in consciousness only ; it is and was in the orange before it was
human intelligence, but then it was having both its relatives only
within the orange; the ratio of difference within itself as phenom-
enon was not sufficient to evolve the variations. It was a unity,
but without consciousness of itself within that limitation ; it had
no perspective, as it were, it could not within its limitations get a
measure of itself or reflect upon itself. What then occurs according
to science is, that every element in that orange is in an unbroken
material contact through the other elements up to and including
the brain. Sensation results, but sensation is only the unbroken
contact of the elements in the orange which nature has found a
way for projecting into their wider relation, where their succession
or order in space and duration in time as they are in the orange, is
having this wider relationing. This new relation evolves the in-
hering difference ; because the new phenomenon of sensation,
thought, mind, whichever it may be called, does not act in the
same ratio in this evolved phase that is the ratio between the rela-
tives when limited to the orange only. With the human brain in
the limitation the ratio between these elements can be separated as
a succession through these succeeding impressions of which the
brain is capable. The succession through these new phenomena
proves to be a process, for it is the difference of that inert or
sameness in the orange, but it is the process of the orange, and be-
cause it is occurring where the orange is now being also its ex-
terior relative, it is therefore where the ratio is a given difference,
and in which this other relative, as that difference, can also set up
an identity. In this particular relation we call that identity con-
sciousness. If we call one matter, the other in this particular differ-
ence can not be matter, and we call it mind; or, in language, we
classify one as noun, really because it evolved only substance in its
limited ratio of sameness ; the other as verb, because we can predi-
cate process or change out of the ratio from one to the other. A
wheel at its center is apparently at rest, at another part is an appa-
rent solid. It is the same wheel in the same motion, where within
a given range and where the spokes and space are seen, it is neither
at rest nor a solid. The explanation, as we know, is a matter of

190 THE MON1ST.

ratio accounting for a sameness and difference in one fact, and yet
science can truthfully rest itself upon the principle that a solid must
be to science what the wheel is in its apparent solidity, and that
rest is what rest is at its center when in either the ratio is beyond
its given. Nevertheless, any such solid has space and any such rest
has motion.

What we are endeavoring to demonstrate in this application
of the Hypothesis is, that the most common material thing cannot
be limited and described as its own entity only, notwithstanding
such a description has been satisfactory to science and philosophy.
Knowledge has already progressed sufficiently to add to such ma-
terial description elements inseparable to it while being its difference.
This Hypothesis recognises the apparent paradox. It makes no
attempt, either in this induction or others to follow, to eliminate
the paradox; on the other hand, it is because it is seen to exist in
all things that the purpose is to find the principle, if there be one,
underlying all things which will explain this paradox and make it
consistent in human reason, and to do this the line which it is
following is this: The present universally accepted method of de-
termining or defining any "thing" in its own identity or integrity
is to confine such thing to quality or qualities, quantity or quantities,
relation or relations, mode or modes which are in time and space
identical or measurably so: That the elements which make up the
thing are virtually alike to the extent at least that a different ele-
ment does not enter into that identity or the integrity of such thing.
Now to this universal method this Hypothesis takes no exception
save that while these elements of sameness thus used to define such
things are there, it is equally true, whether paradoxical or inconsist-
ent with accepted methods, that already conscious knowledge has
advanced in its development to where no exhaustive definition or
determination of a "thing" can be given without the recognised
presence of a quality, or quantity, or relation, or modality which
can not be likened to these other elements and can neither be elimi-
nated from nor confined to that same space and time, yet are an
inseparable part of the identity and integrity of such "thing," and
without which it cannot exist. The paradoxical, the apparently in-

THE CEPTACLE HYPOTHESIS. IQI

consistent conditions which nature has always thrust upon reason,
the antithesis of things, has been a problem from the beginning to
both science and philosophy. The method of meeting the difficulty
has not been to accept what has been so evident as a part of nature
and readjust our reasoning, but instead to retain our system of
logic, to insist, for instance, upon no new adjustment of the point
of view of ego as to itself, and attempt either to eliminate the
paradox or ignore the antithesis or to call the unexplainable a
negligible quantity. This Hypothesis seeks to find a place for the
so-called paradox, for this antithesis, this negligible, although to
do so it assumes that reason must readjust itself and logic find
new rules by which to assert itself. Because matter and mind as
related to each other have been at the very foundation of the diffi-
culties, the battle-ground of controversy, our demonstration of the
Hypothesis begins with the application of material things where they
have appeared fundamentally inconsistent in their relations to mind.
We began with matter occupying space — this as related to the
orange elements of shape, size, roughness, etc., environed by other
matter. Through the medium of this other matter, now usually
considered to be the atmosphere, its radiation and vibrations, or
else by direct contact, impression was made upon, through or in
another form of matter called the human body, whereby was evolved
or developed an entirely new phenomenon — conscious self — the
power of combining as that self all of those separate elements in
space into a unified entity. Not as something new in themselves,
but a larger relation of something already existing, evolving the
power of .^//-realisation. This is ego, but here it only adds knowl-
edge to existence. In this particular relation it is mind, and while
this mind is not matter in any of the forms given to matter and
will not permit of a scientific classification as matter, yet when it
appears it is as an inseparable relative; where in their sameness is
needed the very same space for an exhaustive analysis of either.
For the same identical space by which the orange is determined and
defined is necessary to what proves to be mind, and in this relation
in their sameness the ratio between them in that sameness of space
greater than any given difference. The Hypothesis being tested

IQ2 THE MONIST.

does not take the position that the statement is erroneous which de-
fines matter as occupying space, that is, as those elements that co-
exist in space, but that this is but the definition of the unity of this
matter as one of its relatives and that no exhaustive definition can
be given, after the human enters, which does not include the uni-
fying as the other relative. That when this relative is included it
will prove to be a sameness wherein the ratio is greater than any
given difference, which sameness we are endeavoring to demon-
strate where mind is the relative of the orange. This demonstration
is, however, but a part of the principle disclosed in the Hypothesis
where it further asserts that in this same relation of matter and
mind in this same space these relatives, matter and mind, are in
a ratio of difference which is greater than any given sameness.
This orange, called matter, consists of elements occupying space
in measurable quantity, but it is the unifying of these elements and
not the elements in their unity which is the orange, and this uni-
fying element is not the matter accounting for the orange. This
unifying element will unify any other thing, as well, of entirely
different elements, and yet this unity consists of these two differing
relations, while in this relation their ratio of sameness is greater
than any given difference for the reason that neither one in this
relation can be eliminated in their occupancy of the same space,
nor can either be described in this orange without the other in any
exhaustive description. That the unifying element in the course of
evolution becomes mind is only a step forward in creative expres-
sion ; the principle is the same as a basic fact related to the orange
thing itself, without the mental evolution.

We began the application of the Hypothesis in this particular
instance to this statement, "All matter is defined in its broadest
sense as occupying space, while an idea or thought cannot in any
sense be defined as occupying space." What has been shown by
the Hypothesis is that the "thinking principle," contrary to accepted
belief, may be extended and in its true state as a related instead of
an unrelated principle can be and is known where it is being its
form and location. It has space relations, contrary to prevalent as-
sumptions.

THE CEPTACLE HYPOTHESIS. IQ3

This orange, consisting of matter, occupies space.

These ideas and thoughts prove to be a unifying of this same
matter in this same space.

In this spatial relation, matter and thought are inseparable
relatives, having a ratio of sameness between them greater than any
given difference.

A definition or description of either matter or thought confined
to one of these relatives is not a complete definition and is not in
accord with the scientific or philosophical knowledge of the day ;
and to so confine it is inconsistent with such knowledge.

PROP. I. Matter and mind in an inseparable sameness occupy
the same space.

SECOND APPLICATION.

Matter and mind, which in an inseparable sameness occupy the
same space (PROP. I), as related to that space have a ratio of dif-
ference between them greater than any given sameness.

Matter and mind are both extended and may be so related
(PROP. I) that either is determinable by the same space, and while
in that relation neither can be defined or determined except by that
particular spatial fact. Yet the paradox must be true, according
to the Hypothesis here set up, that related to this same space and
sameness, there is a difference between this same matter and thought
where the ratio of that difference is greater than any given same-
ness.

Now, any given matter elements in a given space, being uni-
fied by or through related thought (PROP. I), must have that par-
ticular relation as one existing fact in a given present time as re-
lated to any past or any possible future. That "given present" is
the duration of that particular relation in that given space, yet
within this "given," change is taking place according to scientific
assumption, for science is agreed that there is no such thing as
the absolutely constant in matter. "All things are growing or de-
caying, accumulating matter or wearing away, integrating or dis-
integrating." The Hypothesis asserts that there must be a paradox-
ical or apparently inconsistent principle involved in what will account

194 THE MONIST.

for the existence of the orange; where two relatives, which can
be identified separately as matter and thought, nevertheless merge
the elements of one with the unifying process of the other so that
their merging is to a sameness where the ratio of that sameness is
greater than any given difference. Nevertheless the principle in
the Hypothesis requires that the same two relatives in that same
space shall have a ratio of difference greater than any given same-
ness. Through PROP. I, the condition is shown to prevail asserted
in the first phase of the principle ; it is the unity of variety in the
unifying of a variety of elements, but it is existing in a given space
(as the orange). It is that orange, it is the one dimension, as it
were, in time, a present orange, which is the unified of those particu-
lar matter elements, but as we have learned from science there is no
such thing as the constant in matter, then that matter relative can-
not exist longer than it is being that "given" present in that partic-
ular specific relation, while the other or thought relative in this
same particular relation is constant in that it unifies the succession
of this being with what becomes as a result of change. It is the
other phase of the principle. It becomes, as it were, a second di-
mension, in time. To this thought relative, but not to the matter
relative, it is the orange, as well as it was the orange. Therein
lies the fact that between inconstant matter and related enduring
thought there is the ratio of difference greater than any given same-
ness, and yet the same unifying thought can no more be separated
from either the past or the present relations than can the same
matter be present in the change. If what are treated as facts in
this application are true as set out in PROP. I, as well as in PROP. II,
the Hypothesis undertakes to account for those facts upon the
principle that the material fact can only exist as matter when merged
with that which can nevertheless be defined or determined as an-
other entity, and where that merger is in a degree of ratio between
these two greater than any difference, and further that, once this
merger is established, there will be found in one of those relatives
a difference where the ratio of that difference between them is
greater than any given sameness. That is, there appears to be a
reasonable explanation for the paradox of a sameness which will

THE CEPTACLE HYPOTHESIS. 195

produce variety, which in this second application gives us the
variety or difference existing in the first application and enables
us to state:

PROP. II. Matter and mind have a ratio of difference between
them, as related to the same space, greater than any given sameness.

We find such statements constantly confronting us as the fol-
lowing (James's Psychology) :

"According to the assumptions of this book, thoughts accom-
pany the brain's workings, and thoughts are cognitive of realities.
The whole relation is one which we can only write down empiric-
ally, confessing that no glimmer of explanation of it is yet in sight.
That brains should give rise to a knowing consciousness at all,
this is the one mystery which returns, no matter of what sort the
consciousness and of what sort the knowledge may be."

As heretofore stated, in developing this Hypothesis, both ma-
terial and mental "things'" will be assumed as existing facts, as
science and philosophy have found and classified them for their
purposes ; as, for instance, it accepts :

"Matter as that which occupies space or is extended, and with
which we become acquainted by means of our bodily senses or or-
gans," and that "mind is self-conscious intelligence, possessing ra-
tional power of self-determination ; or more widely — specially from
a physiological point of view — to include such recognition of ex-
ternal objects as is provided for through the special senses as re-
lated to the cerebrum."

If, therefore, the mystery to be explained, as pointed out by
Professor James, is how brains as matter are possible, or how a
knowing consciousness as mind can be an actuality at all, then so
far as this hypothesis goes it must remain a mystery, but if these
actualities are accepted as unquestioned existing phenomena, de-
finable as indicated, then the hypothesis is intended and expected
to point out a law of cause and effect which will explain how
"brains should give rise to a knowing consciousness."

In Proposition I there were certain several matter elements
such as color, form, etc., which, as matter either separately or to-
gether, can best be defined or determined when they are simply

196 THE MONIST.

asserted to be extended or occupying space. In the further de-
velopment of Proposition I it was stated that these several matter
elements were unified.

We have here two distinctly differing things, the one definable
as material substance, that is extended and occupying space, the
other an activity, a process, the existing or being of the first as a
unifying, being, or process of that extension. The Hypothesis
holds that it is because it is a difference between these two, that
because there is an opportunity or stress present in any "thing,"
that such thing, in its own identity, with such inhering stress be-
tween sameness and difference, constitutes a cause which must of
necessity produce as effect that which is an identifiable difference.
Therefore, in this instance or relation matter gives rise to con-
sciousness. What accounts for this is a never-ceasing relationing
of relatives in a ratio which discloses a concomitant integration and
disintegration of identity, — a never-ceasing interchange of what in
the Hypothesis is called sameness and difference. It must not be
assumed that in any given induction possible to be made these
changing identities can all be followed any more than it is possible
for all nature to be known. But it should be assumed according to
the Hypothesis that every identity will have an inhering difference
beyond any possible given ratio of sameness sufficient to be cause
for the effect indicated.

In the Hypothesis what is called a sameness between the rela-
tives does not mean that a difference does not exist in that relation,
but no given difference exists, none can be determined or defined.
It is where in nature the ratio between the relatives has not yet
been pushed back upon itself, from out of which any difference must
come. An analogous case in principle where consciousness is a
factor is where a base can not be had large enough in a triangle
by which, with the present mechanism for measurement of the
angles, there can be found but parallel lines on the two sides point-
ing to some fixed star. The principle of sameness and difference,
it must be understood, is within any thing; as, for instance, an
assumed indivisible atom. This atom must by this very principle
itself consist of relatives, though, as in the case of any such ulti-

THE CEPTACLE HYPOTHESIS. 1 97

mate in consciousness, it only appears to that consciousness in its
aspect of sameness and not that of its difference, because, again,
as the Hypothesis would hold, the ratio in such "thing" between
the relatives is yet where the sameness is greater than any given
difference, and not yet where any nature phenomenon has evolved
a vantage by which to disclose the ratio of difference which never-
theless does exist. For here we should again note, which we can
not too often repeat, that the principle upon which this Hypothesis
proceeds is that every thing consists of relatives and is itself a
relative, and that the ratio in any relation is from sameness to a
difference with a concomitant relationing of difference to sameness,
where the given is the definable or determinable limitation at either
extreme, and that this "given" is itself a thing like the rest, subject
to the same principle. If within one relative that principle will per-
mit its being a thing which can set up its own identity and prove
itself to consist of relatives, then it would seem as if the principle
would be sufficient to establish a method whereby with that other
identified relative the unity of difference and the difference in
unity throughout nature would become reasonable. It will be seen,
however, that to do this requires, what this Hypothesis assumes
must follow, that human understanding should no longer define
any "thing" in its last analysis except as a relative where its known
or unknown difference is a part of any complete definition or de-
termination.

In the illustration cited, the wheel taken as its whole might be
said to be involved in a movement upon its own sameness and
difference where this fact discloses a principle in such movement
which becomes a cause accounting for two apparently opposite or
contradictor}' effects, for in one relation the effect is what science
classifies as a solid occupying all the space at a given center, while
in the other relation it is motion; that is, it is in fact the same
principle as duration or succession in time. Now, the application
of the Hypothesis to Professor James's difficulty of "knowing con-
sciousness," as, for instance, a knowing consciousness of the orange,
would be in some such manner as this : The elements in the orange
as related to themselves when the orange is being its own relatives,

198 THE MONIST.

are to each other being in one and the same instant, with no given
difference in a related duration in time, but when this sameness be-
comes a relative in its evolved and larger phenomena, then in their
impress upon the brain the succession of that impression becomes
a given difference and no longer a given sameness.

OREN B. TAFT.
CHICAGO, ILL.

THE PLACE OF THE CODE OF HAMMURABI.

'TNO the present day, the studies of the famous code of Hammu-
rabi have been made solely from the Semitic standpoint.
One group of scholars has sought to find support for the conten-
tion that Hebrew civilisation was dependent upon the Babylonian
from the very beginning; that it is in fact, but a certain logical
development therefrom. The effort is conspicuous for its failure.
An opposing school, influenced by traditional views of Hebrew
history, strongly resents the suggestion that the Hebrew code should
be for one moment considered or spoken of as upon so low a moral
plane as the Babylonian. But such protest is even more futile than
the above theory. No worthy end is attained, no useful purpose
subserved, by insisting upon the unapproached superiority of the
Hebrew and his code in their earlier years. The Hebrew records
themselves do not make the claim, nor afford material for its sup-
port. The great Hebrew teachers assert that their people had re-
ceived a peculiar training, which began when they were intellectu-
ally, morally, and socially in a very primitive condition. The final
products of this historic training remain just what they ever have
been, no matter what view be taken as to the origin of the people
and the methods used in their instruction. The evidence is becom-
ing preponderant, moreover, to indicate that the Hebrew organi-
sation in its final shape owed much to Babylonia, if indeed it did
not closely copy the ritual and religious organisation of the great
Eastern center of law and religion. The value of Biblical teaching
is in no wise assailed or impaired, even if such a possibility resolve
itself into a fact.

We have a third theory, of which D. H. Miiller, of Vienna,

2OO THE MONIST.

may be considered the spokesman. It is frankly recognised that
the differences between the codes of Palestine and Babylonia are
more prominent than the resemblances: and it is suggested that we
have before us sister-codes, so to speak: each being a regular de-
velopment of certain principles of primitive Semitic social life. It
is then maintained that we are in a position to determine what were
the few elementary principles of primitive Semitic social and re-
ligious law.

But this view has the objection that the very elements that we
might expect to be common to both codes, in case of such descent,
are those which are notably missing from the Hebrew law, and con-
stitute its supreme defects. We might expect minute and carefully
detailed regulations concerning commerce and trade, rental, agri-
culture, etc., to be lost during any relapse to nomadic life, such as
we find recorded in the case of the Hebrew. But why should the
highly developed code of individual rights, of feminine independ-
ence, of equitable inheritance, of judicial organisation and procedure,
be utterly lost by a people who had once been in southern Baby-
lonia? May it not be that the Hebrew civil and secular code is
simply Palestinian? that it is in its main features as Canaanitish
as their language? The principles which the theory of common
descent from an earlier code would give us reason to expect in the
Hebrew code we do not find expressed in it. They had to be
learned later, in some measure, from Babylonia. We must account
these facts fatal to the theory.

It has long been suspected by students of anthropology that
Semitic scholarship has allowed itself to be too much affected by the
conception of the peculiar separateness of the Semitic race. The
acknowledged presence and influence of animistic and totemistic
elements in its religious development have served in some measure
to obliterate the distinction, and to link the Semite religiously to the
rest of mankind. Can any other position be safely assumed in
the study of Semitic law? It is time to take another leaf out of
Bastian. Does what is known as Semiticism represent an independent
type of human development, something pre-eminently sui generis?
Or is it only one of the necessary stages in human evolution, affected

THE PLACE OF THE CODE OF HAMMURABI. 2OI

by the peculiar local conditions in Arabia? Are we to find in the
Semitic codes compared Ur-Semitic ideas, with Miiller, or pre-
Semitic ideas — principles latent in humanity and common to the
race? Does the final highly developed code of Babylonia represent
anything else than a certain stage of human progress?

There are those who are peculiarly restive under the suggestion
that the evolution of man is so largely controlled by material factors
as Buckle's view indicates. Ingersoll's dashing statement that "man
is a machine into which we put what we call food, and get therefrom
what we call thought" is sometimes selected as an expression of
the principle, and assailed as hopelessly atheistic or materialistic.
But is it? Without discussing the soundness of the statement, are
we not still compelled to ask who made the machine, its food, and
the environment and laws of its operation ?

We may inquire then if the evidence of so-called Semitic law
does not compel us to a monistic view of mankind, as the necessary
correlate to a monistic conception of God. The influence of local
environment does not conflict with the view, but supports it. And
such monistic view of mankind the Hebrew literature asks us to
accept. We may then compare the principles of the Hammurabi
code with those of other bodies of legislation, to determine whether
we should not explain it simply as a high development of man,
embodying elements common to the race, and attaining a point pos-
sible only after long ages of social evolution.

One fundamental principle of all primitive law is retaliation.
We cannot perceive any essential difference in this respect between
the laws of the Semite and those of the Aryan, the central African,
or the North American Indian. There is a mere impulse of the
human animal to strike back when struck ; the disposition to cherish
the memory of an injury, and to avenge it at the first opportunity.
There are no necessarily moral ideas in such behavior, nor can we
fairly say there is a law in it, in the sense which we are considering.

The idea of law seems to begin in the establishment of a rude
notion of proportion between an injury and the vengeance repaid.
What we know of humanity does not suggest that this results from
any reflection upon the abstract idea of justice. Primitive ven-

2O2 THE MONIST.

geance is noted for being entirely disproportionate to the original
offense: and it remains so till a tolerably definite social order has
become established. When necessity has extended the crude family
idea to a body of men forming a clan, the impulse of the avenger
is seriously hampered. He is compelled to consider what may be
the result if he takes the whole matter into his own hands. Thus
a rigidly applied lex talionis develops as a pure compromise between
two opposing factions. The savage man would fain torture his
enemy to death for a comparatively trivial injury. But the friends
of this aggressor would have him go scot-free, if possible. The
result of the contention is eventually to establish the law that the
aggressor shall be treated just as his victim was. The one faction
will allow no more, the opposing clan will accept no less. Thus a
consuetudinary law becomes established with no necessary moral
associations or impulses, with no other notion of justice than a rude
sense of proportion between the two injuries inflicted. The abstract
conception of justice, the purpose to work to some high end, must
be regarded as a far off consequent, rather than as a cause, of the
lex talionis.

How difficult it is to get beyond this stage and to reach abstract
treatment, how very lame all effort to administer such a codal prin-
ciple necessarily must be, is well illustrated by the story of the man
who was haled into a Turkish court upon a charge of murder. He
had fallen from an upper window upon a passer-by; thereby the
latter was killed, though the former escaped unharmed. The dead
man's son, as next of kin, took up the case : the court gave verdict
in his favor. The son was to go to the same upper window: the
accused was to stand beneath, and the son was to fall upon him
and kill him. An American court might render such verdict as a
bit of sarcasm upon a senseless suit. But there is no grim humor
intended in the Oriental verdict.

The tale illustrates one point in the arrest of development of
Oriental law, as contrasted with the more modern Aryan laws. A
second difficulty in the application of such principle appears when
the literal application of the lex talionis directly involves other par-
ties in addition to the original plaintiff and defendant. In the code

THE PLACE OF THE CODE OF HAMMURABI. 2O3

of Hammurabi some trace of this difficulty remains, as in the case
of the builder who erects a flimsy structure. Should its collapse
occasion the death of son or daughter of the householder, the son
or daughter of the builder must be put to death. But this stage is
much beyond that of the early Hebrew, or of modern China, where
the man is not viewed as an unrelated individual, but merely as the
representative of a clan or family: and any grave misdeed of one
may involve the destruction of the whole, as in the case of Achan.
Or, the sons may be slain long after the father's death, to avenge
an old grudge against the father, as in the case of Saul's sons. So
in China to-day supposed treason involves the destruction of all
male kin within the first degree : and in West Africa a man having
a grudge against some member of a neighboring tribe kills the first
member of that tribe whom he may meet: thus satisfying the
grudge. It is the tribe, not the individual, that has wronged him.
The correlate of this view is that the clan acknowledges the deed
of a member as its own, and the effort to protect the wrongdoer
may involve the destruction of the clan, as in the case of Gibeah
of Benjamin, and of Jabesh-Gilead. But this stage is wholly past
in the code of Hammurabi : clans have given way to the individuals,
and the single law referred to is the only apparent trace remaining
of overstepping the conception of purely individual responsibility
for any given act. It is worth remembering, in this connection, that
Ezekiel, the exile in Babylon, preaches to Israel the recent Deutero-
nomic law that no son should be punished for his father's misdeeds :
"Ye shall no more use this proverb in Israel." "The soul that
sinneth, it shall die," was the law of Babylon.

It may be recognised that the abandonment of such primitive
principle was essential to the empire-building of the ancient Baby-
lonians. We know that in the lower Euphrates valley cities sprang
up ages before the ascendency of Babylon: their relations to each
other being much like those of the free cities of mediaeval Germany,
or the city-republics of Italy. Only a common body of law, some-
thing of a compromise, embodying some principles acceptable to
each clan city, could fuse the group of individual competitors for
the hegemony into a harmonious whole. The compilation of such

2O4 THE MONIST.

was the achievement of Hammurabi: and it is very clear that such
consolidation was hardly possible till the idea of clan responsibility
was practically abandoned for that of personal responsibility.

The code of Hammurabi has again passed beyond the Hebrew
law, or indeed any other Semitic law, in modifying the lex talionis
by recognition of the right of self-defense. The Hebrew code,
even its latest form, recognises only accidental killing as consti-
tuting a ground for modification of the law ; and the method is
not one that would commend itself to Christian courts. It is to
be noted, also, that murder is not dealt with by state courts: there
is no state concerned in the matter. The whole thing is left really
to private vengeance: and the man who in an altercation kills an-
other in self-defense has no protection. The story of Abner, Joab,
and Asahel serves to illustrate the matter. David has been criti-
cised as weak in his dealing with Joab. This is beside the mark.
David had no jurisdiction in the matter. A further step in the
modification of the rigid law of retaliation may result from large
commercial development, and the necessity of regarding a slave
as a piece of property, upon which a pecuniary value is placed.
Late Babylonian decisions may show the influence of this, and sug-
gest a new meaning for "a life for a life." We have a case in
which a man had been killed: whether accidentally or no, we can-
not say, as the tablet is damaged. But the judges decide that he
must make over to the family of his victim a certain valuable slave :
otherwise he must be put; to death on the grave of the slain. The
great prominence given to the commercial value of a man in Baby-
lon, with the everywhere apparent effort to make amends to ail
injured parties, suggest that we have not here a mere case of com-
pounding a felony, but the effort to make amends to a family for
the loss of a breadwinner by giving it another. In this point the
Babylonian practice may have somewhat the advantage of modern
codes, in that it endeavored to make amends at the only point where
such was possible.

Yet this may have been the survival of a very ancient, and
slightly different practice. Among the wild Arab tribes of the
lower Euphrates protracted inter-clan feuds are to-day finally ad-

THE PLACE OF THE CODE OF HAMMURABI. 2O5

justed, after counting up the losses, by the payment, to the worsted
clan, of two women for each man that it has lost above the number
killed in the rival clan. A man is accounted more valuable than a
woman, for the warlike purposes of peoples: further, the defeated
clan needs more child-bearers, to repair its numerical losses. Very
similar methods of settling clan feuds are reported from West
Africa. The view taken of woman in tribal wars may recall to the
reader the savage destruction of women in the earlier narratives of
the Old Testament. And it is interesting to recall that Bellamy,
in his Looking Back^vard, advocated the adjustment of all fluctua-
tions in the working-strength of a nation, if produced by emigra-
tion, by reimbursing such nation for the loss of each efficient la-
borer. He may have been looking backward more really than he
knew. Such early practice is one important root of slavery. The
persons thus paid over generally become servants of the clan. But
it is, on the other hand, proper to inquire if modern law, dealing
only with moral and retributive aspects of murder cases, has not
wholly omitted to consider the inevitable economic or commercial
interests involved. The earlier law, whether Semitic or Aryan,
seems to have tried to grapple with both.

The very large development of commercial law in Babylonia,
and its influence in humanising the lex talionis, are indirectly sup-
ported by the prominence given to adoption. It became much more
than a means of securing an heir for a childless family. It was an
effective method of recruiting the powerful labor guilds that were
so prominent a feature of the Babylonian social structure. Adop-
tion was void if the child were not taught his adoptive father's
trade. A commercial estimate of a man's value does not appear as
modifying the lex talionis in murder cases, where men of different
ranks were concerned ; at least it does not appear in the code.

Now this question of rank is one of the largest factors in de-
troying the rude equity of the law of retaliation. The noble cannot
meet the serf upon equal terms. An injury to one cannot be con-
sidered the equivalent of an injury to the other. Yet it need not
always displace the method of compounding petty injuries, that has
developed among men of equal rank. We observe this, in the case

2O6 THE MONIST.

of such, in the code of Hammurabi. The basis of estimation seems
to be the cash value of the services of a first-class slave. From this
standpoint the relative values of hand, foot, or eye, approximate
those adopted by modern accident insurance companies. But in
the case of slaves, only those salable or transferable are viewed
as chattels. The man whose service is merely temporary, in order
to cancel a debt, is legally a free man, and an injury to him must be
treated from that standpoint.

The two principles of recognition of rank and of commercial
compounding are naturally susceptible of great abuse. The former
has produced the larger injustice in Aryan law and practice, owing
to the more minute social subdivision. The commoner or burgher
is above the serf or bondman ; neither is held of any value in com-
parison with the knight or nobleman. In India the Brahmin even-
tually assumes the same unapproachable pre-eminence. The fearful
oppression of the lower ranks, under such conditions, is a familiar
tale. But Semitic society has not attained these sharply defined de-
limitations. Even the slave of to-day may be the prince of to-
morrow. The one is not so inferior socially, the other not so pre-
eminent, as in Aryan society. So in Babylonia industrial and intel-
lectual efficiency seem to be recognised, whether in freeman or slave.
We do not find the minutely graded officialdom so prominent in
military Assyria. The institutions seem to be moulded in no small
degree by the earlier Sumerian precedents. The judicial organi-
sation rather suggests the Chinese civil service than the methods
of other Semitic peoples. The powerful guilds, their apparent im-
portance in the social structure, remind us of the guilds that arose
similarly among the free Teutonic burghers of mediaeval Europe,
or the guilds and societies so important among modern Mongolian
peoples. But legally there seem to be but two great classes in
Babylonia, as in Central Africa: the chiefs or officials, and the
freemen. A law is promulgated for the punishment of the man
who injures one of higher rank than himself: the penalty is a
public whipping. There is but one law, one penalty, one compari-
son of rank involved. While this elementary difference in rank
works abuses in Semitic lands, it does not seem to have been re-

THE PLACE OF THE CODE OF HAMMURABI. 2O7

duced to a regular "Wehrgeld" scale, as among ancient Teutons
and Hindus, according to which "every man has his price," at
which he may be injured. On the other hand, the compounding idea
has been the more abused among Semites and Africans: greed for
petty gain overruling other considerations. A woman appealed to
King Theodore of Abyssinia ; her husband had been murdered ; the
offending soldier had escaped with a small fine. King Theodore
summoned the judge and the soldier, heard the evidence, then asked
the judge what penalty had been imposed. "Ten dollars fine," re-
plied the judge. "Very cheap !" said Theodore: "I can afford that!"
and drawing a pistol he shot the soldier dead, then laid down the
ten dollars before the astonished judge, whose subsequent judicial
conduct was more circumspect.

We have also applications of the talio to property questions.
Two children are playing on the floor. One breaks the toy of the
other and is promptly struck ; or his toy may be broken ; or if the
injured child have a little more foresight, he will appropriate his
playmate's toy to make good his loss. Practically the world has no
other principles in all its laws, for the protection of property. Among
children the compensation idea is usually the last to manifest itself,
while the mere angry destruction of the other party's property is
generally recognised as peculiarly childish ; or, among men, as pecu-
liarly savage. In law this method has never become recognised as
a wise principle ; and there is no legislation that punishes a man by
burning his crops or maiming his beasts. Only where the property
itself is a nuisance or source of peril does law generally demand
its destruction, as in the case of a savage dog or unruly ox. The
two largely used principles then are punishment inflicted upon the
person of the offender, and the exaction of damages from him. In
Aryan law the former principle is the more largely applied, though
the very modern Aryan peoples do not now kill, burn, maim, or
mutilate petty offenders against property rights so generally as
they once did. In the Hammurabi code, on the other hand, resti-
tution is the great principle almost everywhere applied. All sorts
of failures to fulfill contracts, all sorts of petty thefts or attempts
at fraud, seem regarded as creating petty debts, which stand against

208 THE MONIST.

the offender. The primal purpose seems always to restore to the
injured property-owner all that he had been deprived of, with some
compensation for his annoyance. Beyond this the code does not
seem to go. There is no conception of a wrong to the dignity and
peace of the state, of which we hear in our own formal indictments,
In a single case we find maiming — that of the penniless fellow who
is dependent upon the kepu for the opportunity to raise a crop. If
he steal any of the equipment entrusted him, he has no means of
repayment, and personal injury is resorted to: he has his fingers
cut off. The death penalty that appears in the early sections of the
code in a case of disputed property, we must consider as really aimed
at the perjury, not at the theft. The offense has been greatly ag-
gravated : the false claim persisted in, and sworn to. The offender
has violated the sanctity of the temple as much as he who has
broken into it and robbed the gods. Each offender meets the same
fate.

As in the case of the earlier lex talio for personal injuries, we
cannot affirm that there are any necessary moral ideas in the con-
duct or impulses of the children used above for purposes of illustra-
tion. And the idea of restitution must be reached only after much
discussion of the problem in clan life. It is not everywhere domi-
nant in savage law : rather does it seem exceptional. In African
law it is notably rare: mutilation, slavery, or death are the usual
penalties. In the Hammurabi code, however, the religious feeling
in regard to restitution is very strong. All losses or injuries must
be attested by oath ; and the gods are in this way given great prom-
inence as the protectors of property.

The moral ideas of the people are much more definitely dis-
cernible in another direction. It is apparent to every one that a
people who begin to regulate society by the application of a rigid
lex talionis or restitution-principle will in time discover that the
method has most pronounced limitations: that there are many of
the most serious offenses to which the principle is totally inappli-
cable. That so many of these remain outside the provisions of all
early codes may be taken as evidence that the lex talionis is, as we
have suggested, the primal impulse of law: the offenses beyond its

THE PLACE OF THE CODE OF HAMMURABI. 2OQ

powers are most probably recognised later, and in consequence of
a considerable religious development. How far taboos are respon-
sible for them we cannot discuss at this place. Suffice it to say
that the cuneiform literature reveals to us a large number of offenses
which immediately entail a species of taboo upon the offender. None
may eat of his table, drink of his cup, or associate with him in any
way, without being tainted thereby and subjected to similar ex-
communication. The banned person is shunned as if infected by the
plague. We have the theory of the temporal rewards of evil-doing
reduced to a minute and logical series of details. The person is
solemnly declared accursed ; or the curse is formally invoked upon
him. Such a person, among primitive races, is "cut off from among
his people." In the code we find this excommunication in the case
of the person guilty of incest with his son's wife ; and the same
idea is really involved in the disinheritance of a son who has lain
with his stepmother. The curse of Jacob upon Reuben is a direct
application of the law of Hammurabi. Beyond these principles the
code does not go : leaving to the domain of religion or to social dis-
cipline some offenses that are within the provisions of more modern
secular codes. In^this respect the Babylonian law. is paralleled by
the Hebrew, with its large list of accursed offenses. The Aryan
law is in the same condition. The main difference is that the list
of curses in the Hebrew code apparently antedates the largest cere-
monial development, while in the Babylonian banning texts the list
of ceremonial infractions involving excommunication for a longer
or shorter period, is larger ; and in Menu it is simply prodigious.
We have relative stages of development thereby suggested.

But this method of punishing one's enemy, when the courts
could not deal with the case, by pronouncing an excommunicative
curse upon him, was capable of large abuse : and all early codes show
the effort to limit it. In the code of Hammurabi, the imprecator
must show that the case is one recognised as deserving a curse. In
the early Aryan code, certain devices must not be used: apparently
the effort is to stop the practice altogether. In the Hebrew code,
curses may be invoked in the name of Yahveh ; but there must not be
invocation of the spirits of the dead, or strange divinities, or the

2IO THE MONIST.

supposed spirits of evil. Such cursing is not in the name of Yahveh,
and witchcraft is accordingly viewed as idolatry. A childlike con-
fidence in the potency of such imprecations or incantations belongs
to all branches of the human family : the practice is not, in any of its
phases, purely Semitic. The witch is believed to have real power,
and using it to slay or maim, is to all intents and purposes a mur-
derer.

It is a fundamental principle of the code of Hammurabi that
the presumption is always in favor of the innocence of the accused :
the burden of proof is thrown upon the accuser. This but parallels
the moderately developed judicial procedure of all peoples. But
the fact that the laws are not yet conceived as expressing the will
of a corporate body known as the state results in there being no
such personage as a state's attorney to conduct the prosecution.
Nor is there a royal prosecuting attorney: while Hammurabi is the
actual compiler, he conceives the laws to be really from Shamash.
There is no grand jury to find a true bill: no penitentiary represent-
ing outraged society ; for while primitive society has really made the
laws, it is not yet fully conscious of the fact and in consequence at-
tributes to them a different origin. Not merely is the burden of
proof upon the accuser, but in all primitive society the entire burden
of accusation or indictment falls upon him. In this respect the legal
procedure of Babylonia seems to have been that of all early nations.
Even Aryan peoples have known no other till a relatively recent
period.

It is very early apparent that under such a system the more
plausible speaker may have too distinct an advantage in his presen-
tation of his own case; and there is too much advantage with the
popular favorite, in case the matter is argued before the popular
assembly, as in ancient Greece or modern Africa. The balance oi
personal factors that was partially established in primitive society
by control of the lex talionis, is seriously disturbed. Hence a dele-
gated judicial body of some sort may appear very early; usually
in the form of a council of the chiefs or elders, as among the Nortf
American Indians. It remains the essential feature of early Semitic

THE PLACE OF THE CODE OF HAMMURABI. 211

courts; it remains in Babylonia in a highly developed form, and is
but slightly modified in the more advanced Aryan procedure.

But we find other things are needed to meet the difficulty and
the idea of so framing the judicial administration that it may pre-
vent crime rather than punish, seems to be attained very early. We
may feel sure that this is one reason of the early development of
the law in Babylonia, that every sort of transaction concerning which
dispute might arise should be committed to writing. The court's
task is largely reduced to the examination of documents: there is
an insuperable barrier to forensic eloquence, and the plaintiff with-
out documents, when they were possible, is nonsuited. Possibly no
other judicial system so thoroughly eliminated prejudice and passion.
But we have no Babylonian oratory.

The conducting one's own case does not appear to have been
superseded among the early Hebrews. We have not, however, the
insistence upon carefully prepared and attested documents, which
we find in Babylonia; but in the Babylonian Talmud they become
prominent. In Greece, on the other hand, we find the paid attorney
developing: but he is a product of the rights of the popular as-
sembly ; there is no delegation of popular authority to a senate, and
any one may speak upon any case. This is also the practice of the
African popular assembly. The sheer love of speechmaking, of
intellectual combat, soon produced men whom litigants endeavored
to retain, as champions of their interests. The Greek advocate was
a great orator, rather than a technical, methodical lawyer. And
there is no provision for the prevention of a wrong.

But in Rome the early inhabitants show the powerful clans or
gentes collecting in a single city, with the same complaint of the
plebs against the clan-lords that we find so frequently voiced in
Israel. The assembly of clan-chiefs is soon modified by an elec-
tive system, and early experiences convince the Roman state that
it would be better to thwart the oppressors of the plebs, than to
punish them after the wrong was done. The situations in Rome,
Babylon, and Palestine are closely parallel. Rome meets the situa-
tion by creating the great tribune of the people. His prohibitive
authority is all but unlimited. His person is sacred, and made

212 THE MONIST.

so by the law. The great principle here established remains in
our vetos and restraining injunctions. The Hebrew also had his
great tribune of the people. But he had no legal standing. The
elders, the primitive courts, had not recognised the necessity of his
existence: the Babylonian document was unknown in this legal
procedure: the only legislation upon his position eventually put him
under the control of the formalists he had ever opposed, and placed
no power whatever in his own hands. He was compelled, by the
very nature of the case, to adopt the Greek method, to betake himself
to public oratory : but to direct it to the Roman ideal : to the preven-
tion of wrong. Hence his repeated protests in behalf of the plebei-
ans are based upon purely moral and religious grounds. He must
find, if possible, the conscience of the people ; there was neither
secular organisation, nor constitution, nor publicly posted code, to
which he could appeal : he could quote no codal law for many of the
evils he assailed, for legislation upon the subject did not exist, nor
was there a legislative assembly through which he could secure such
law. This "speaker" of the Hebrews is the nab'i. He is parallel
to the Roman tribune in his battle against oppression. Each was
a social necessity, as was the dispassionate appeal to records in
Babylonia. As an immediately effective agency the Hebrew prophet
was the least valuable, and his unorganised state went down soonest.
As the creator of a public conscience essential to the perpetuity o
the effectiveness of the systems of Rome and of Babylon, he is in
dispensable. Greece, with neither of the methods, soonest lost hei
political pre-eminence.

But the Roman lawyer really antedates the tribune of the peopl
though the latter is an expression of the principle from which th
Roman lawyer grew. Caesar, describing certain powerful Galli
clans, tells us that the clan chief held himself responsible for t
protection of each member of the clan, which he thinks peculiar
yet it was the earlier Roman practice and survives to-day in th
Italian padrone. But the worldwide custom of assembling th
heads of gentes or clans to adjust differences quickly developed
after the founding of the Roman state, the principle of delegat
authority ; and this soon carried with it the growth of a body of

THE PLACE OF THE CODE OF HAMMURABI.

skilled in the law, to whom the adjustment of all difficulties is
delegated by the plaintiff and defendant.

Now at this point the Babylonian law shows some tendency to
the delegate-principle. In later contracts we deal repeatedly with
cases that but suggest the agent or client of a large firm, handling
business by power of attorney. In reference to the method used
to prevent fraud and diminish litigation, we should observe that the
Babylonian law appeals at every stage to the religious impulses.
A solemn oath binds all contracts. Parties to a suit in like manner
bind themselves to accept the decision of the court: apparently a
reminiscence of the purely advisory powers of the early melek, or
sheik. In Aryan development we have the same thing, in the
derivation of the "king" : like the Semitic 'melek, he was "the wise
one," or "adviser." But while the religious obligation seems to have
been powerful in Babylonia to the end, in Assyria there certainly
was degeneracy. We have judicial decisions from the Sargonid
period, which indicate that penalties solemnly invoked in an earlier
age were actually undergone in the later age to induce a god or a
court to release a man from his oath. The gross obscenity of cer-
tain late Assyrian oath formulae points in the same direction: to a
"bloody city, full of lies and robbery."

That the owner of any piece of property shall be held respon-
sible for any mischief done by it is a generally recognised principle
of law in all lands. The degree of such responsibility is much larger
in the primitive stages of law than in the later era. Public senti-
ment in civilised lands would not sustain a verdict of murder in the
first degree against the man whose vicious ox had gored some one
to death, though it would demand heavy punishment. Measured
by modern ideas, and the tendencies in such laws, we should decide
that the Babylonian law was in this respect a stage in advance of
the Hebrew.

This principle again is involved in the responsibility for trust
funds and safe deposits. Here, however, limitations occur. The
Babylonian trustee is held responsible for the keeping of his own
house : and if the property of another man be stolen from his house,
the loss falls upon the trustee. But on the other hand, if the

214 THE MONIST.

robbery take place upon the highway, the carrier, or agent, or
peddler is blameless, and nothing can be collected from him. But
in such case the loser may be indemnified by the city or magistrate
within whose jurisdiction the robbery took place. Early Hebrew
practice reversed this latter procedure. The elders of a settlement
by a ceremonial observance repudiated all responsibility for a secret
murder in their district: but the repudiation was, in reality, a spe-
cies of admission, and merely illustrates the very primitive state
of the administrative or police organisation. But the Babylonian
official was required to keep the highways clear of robbers. The
intra-mural requirements were perhaps not different. The robbed
trustee was expected to pursue the thief and recover; however, it
is hardly warrantable to assert that the burden of detection and
arrest lay solely upon him. We may rather suppose that his method
of recovery lay in reporting the loss to the city authorities. That
the general public interested itself to a certain extent in such mat-
ters is illustrated in a letter in which two men report that a golden
tablet which was stolen from a temple they have observed in the
possession of a certain stone-cutter.

Now, this principle of clan-responsibility for deaths or injuries
is familiar among all primitive peoples, and as an inter-clan prin-
ciple has never ceased to be active: giving us to-day the principle
of indemnities known to international law from time immemorial.

But as intra-national law, it has been a strong factor in empire-
building, as in ancient Babylonia; clan cities being made to realise
the necessity of a common code to eliminate constant internal fric-
tion. In the extent to which the responsibility is attached to the
chief officer of the district, we have a suggestion of Sumerian or
Mongolian origin: akin to the large application of the principle
still known in China. The individual responsibility for dykes and
levees is unique: in other ancient peoples the levee system seems
public, or communal ; and the principle of individual responsibility
is not emphasised as in the Hammurabi code. But the laws concern-
ing trust funds and deposits are not essentially different from those
of other ancient codes.

Marriage seems viewed by the code purely as a civil institution.

THE PLACE OF THE CODE OF HAMMURABI. 215

Priests may have been prominent in the ceremony, but we do not
know of them. The essential legal features are the carefully drawn
documents, and the attestation of consent by representatives of
both families. We have in the code and decisions a survival of the
time when all marriages were arranged by the parents of the bride
and groom. Their consent is still technically essential to marriage,
though they cannot separate a young couple who unite in spite of
them. We have decisions concerning cases where the parents of
one or the other of the contracting parties complained that the mar-
riage had been without their consent. The judges decide that the
young woman must then wear the badge of a concubine, instead of
that of a matron. But parental displeasure can go no further: and
this state of affairs is terminated by the death of the objecting
parent. The brothers of the stigmatised woman must formally
recognise and endow their sister's marriage.

At this point then we may recognise a marked diminution of
the ancient patria potestas: a compromise between the authority of
the parents and the inclinations of the young people. After the
first marriage there is no restraint upon the woman's freedom of
action, save such as may be necessary to guard the property-rights
of her children. She may marry where she will, none of the family
having any legal right of protest; and the widow's authority in
her own house certainly is above that of the widow in the Arab
tribe in Mohammed's day, or in the days of Hebrew corruption
when the prophets urged justice to the fatherless and widow ; when
all Hebrew codes put together had but four enactments concerning
the rights of married women.

We may not be sure of the source or cause of this modification
of parental powers. It cannot be due to primitive Semitic influences,
for the early Hebrew recognises the right of life and death as vested
in the parent. The father could sacrifice his son or daughter; he
could offer the lives of his sons, as Judah did, as security for faith-
ful fulfilment of a bargain. He could marry his daughter to whom
he would; he could take his daughter, as Saul did, from her hus-
band, and give her to another; he could sell his daughter, (Exodus
xxi. 7,) as Rachel complained she was sold: both of which we have

2l6 THE MONIST.

seen that the angry Babylonian parent could not do. Even in Deu-
teronomy the power of life and death is reaffirmed, in the case of a
troublesome son : the offended parent in Babylon could go no further
than disinheritance: and even that step could not be taken without
the consent of the court. The Talmud also recognises that a parent
can legally take away his daughter, though it insists it should not
be done: adopting practically the Babylonian law, while admitting
Hebrew theory. So in ancient Roman law, the patria potestas was
absolute. Virginius was perfectly within the law in slaying Vir-
ginia. So was the King of Moab in sacrificing his son : though like
sentiments seem to have been aroused against Appius Claudius and
Jehoshaphat. The Roman father also could take his daughter from
her husband, as Saul did Michal ; and this forced separation could
be construed as legal divorce. So in the fragments of old Sumerian
legislation we find this same paternal power: the father could sell
his son as a slave, and seems to have had the right to put him to
death as well. The same law remains in China still, cases being
common enough. The prevalence of infanticide among the heathen
Arabians cannot be certainly construed as mere patria potestas, for
it was offset by the practice of killing the aged and feeble. On the
other hand, the Greek parent does not appear to have had such ab-
solute powers; nor do we certainly recognise it in primitive Aryan
laws. This rigid principle may then have been Mongolian in origin.
The Etruscans and Sumerians are alike suspected to be Mongols;
and Etruscan domination certainly affected early Roman institutions.
We might thus explain the sterner laws of both regions, in their
earlier years ; but the humanisation of the code of Hammurabi we
must evidently consider to be a result of the general development
of civilisation and public sentiment, rather than of peculiarly Se-
mitic ideas.

Neither the code nor any other Babylonian remains at present
show us any trace of the levirate marriage. This was well known
to the early Romans, and to the early laws of the Aryans; it re-
mains even in Menu. It is familiar in the Hebrew records, even
in the time of Tobit ; it is provided for in Deuteronomy. If we re-
gard it as a relic of polyandry, we shall be compelled to admit the

THE PLACE OF THE CODE OF HAMMURABI. 217

Sumerian had developed very highly, to eliminate an institution so
familiar to the primitive Mongol, and so prominent in Thibet to
this day. If the idea is merely that of abandoning one clan for
another, we may understand its loss is due to the displacement of
blood-clans by labor-clans. The great guilds of Babylonia have dis-
placed the old social divisions based upon kinship. Such industrial
development would logically eliminate the levirate ; a widow would
marry then within her guild.

Divorce is far less easy in the code than in the Koran, or in
the Hebrew codes. There is no opportunity for divorce at the
mere whim of the man, by a mere verbal dismissal. Courts are in
charge, and charges must be investigated. But among the heathen
Arabians, the utmost laxity prevailed. Mohammed's law to con-
trol the abuses is rather ludicrous. As the same woman was often
divorced and remarried by her whimsical husband, the curious meas-
ure was adopted that such husband could not reclaim his wife till
she had first been married to another man : precisely the reverse of
the Deuteronomic law (xxiv. 1-4). The Deuteronomic law pro-
vides for a written certificate ; the patriarchal law, like the Roman,
did not require such. But the Chinese law has from extremely an-
cient times demanded that a husband give the parents of his divorced
wife a written statement of the reasons for the divorce : which docu-
ment may become the basis of legal procedures. And such legal
procedures, with forfeits of property, were inevitable in Babylonia.

The Babylonian Talmud considers that a marriage is legal and
binding when the contracts are drawn up. In the earlier times of
the Hebrew people we do not find this; and the rabbins who have
held this up as an evidence of the superior character of the Hebrew
law have simply been innocent of any remembrance of the land
whence they derived it.

Though the formal bonds and contracts were essential to the
full title of wife or matron in Babylonia, children were regarded
as an end of marriage ; and the fruitless marriage might be amended
in various ways. But barrenness constituted no ground for divorce.
Penalty for unreasonable divorce, seven years' earnings for a skilled
laborer, was so heavy as to render divorce impossible to the masses.

2l8 THE MONIST.

There was far more latitude in ancient Rome and Greece as among
ancient Semites; though as a practice the earlier Romans had a
horror of divorce. Spurius Cavilius Ruga, A. U. C. 523, has been
asserted to be the first Roman who formally divorced his wife ; but
the practice was disgracefully common in the days of Rome's luxury.
Nor was there in the Babylonian husband's hands the supreme power
that was granted to the Roman husband. The tradition has been
left that Roman wives were accustomed to absent themselves from
home three days in the year, as a precaution ; one year's continuous
residence under the husband's roof transferring to him the power
of life and death formerly held by the father. In primitive Aryan
law we seem to miss this masculine domination : it develops later
under Brahminism. Woman's position was apparently higher with
the early Aryas than at many later periods. We may consider that
there was degeneracy even in Europe, till the rise of feudalism and
the development of the standards of chivalry. In the Homeric songs
woman is the prize of war as completely as among the later nomad
Semites. In widowhood especially woman's position through all
the East became one of peculiar hardships. But in all these less
advanced social systems, as with the higher Babylonian, there is
one common feature: the man marries the woman, divorces the
woman. She does not take a husband, nor divorce one. She merely
compels the man to grant her a divorce. The sadiqa marriage lies
far back of the era of Hammurabi.

Very striking is the high rank accorded to the agriculturist, in
the Babylonian social system. This is certainly non-Semitic: the
high place of the farmer dates from old Sumerian days. Literati
develop their standing later. Mechanics rank after the farmer;
merchants lower still. In the Hammurabi code, we may observe
in the wage scale that the highest wages are those of the first-class
farm laborer, though the code dates from the days of the pastoral
Semites. In the list of officials, K.4395, the merchant still ranks
below the gardener. This is the more striking in that it comes from
the Sargonid age, when the Babylonian merchant had made the
city famed for centuries throughout the world. Even the kings of
the pre-Semitic age seemed to rejoice in the title "servant of Adar,"

THE PLACE OF THE CODE OF HAMMURABI. 219

(the god of agriculture,) or "farmer." In far later times the
"Farmer Prince" or "Great Farmer" is the title of a great official;
and it seems to have been borne occasionally by the king himself.
Semitic kings, however, preferred the title of "Faithful Shepherd":
thus perpetuating the tradition of their pastoral origin. In this
actual collision of two modes of life we may perceive an historic
basis for the tradition of Cain and Abel. We may compare with
these facts the title of the Hindu Prince, the Gai-kwar or "Cowherd"
of Baroda. But we are most forcibly reminded of the high rank
theoretically accorded to the farmer in China, and of the fact that
the "Son of Heaven" must there guide a plough around a field with
his own hands, to emphasise the high place of agriculture. The
secondary position of the Chinese merchant, with his painstaking,
methodical honesty, also forcibly remind us of the great city of the
ancient East, with its great early development of commercial su-
premacy. All this commercial law, like the position of the agricul-
turist, seems to have been fully developed ere the political dominion
of the Semite. Such is the legitimate inference from the habitual
use of the Sumerian in the critical phrases of early Semitic contracts.
Edwin Markham has drawn us the picture of the "Man with
the Hoe" in all the ancient world. We may observe its marked con-
trast with the social position of the Babylonian farmer. We cannot
then find any trace of Ur-Semitic affinities in this ancient land.
The law is not only unlike the Hebrew, and his gradual pauperisa-
tion of the wretched Canaanite tiller of the soil; it is still more un-
like the system of the nomadic Arab shepherd patriarchs. Not only
is the farmer awarded the highest place in the industrial world, but
the debtor-laws give him the largest possible protection. We may
contrast Egypt, where the wretched fellah has ever been what he
still is. Amenemun writes to Pentaour, court poet of Rameses II:
"Have you ever represented to yourself the state of the rustic who
tills the ground? Before he has put sickle to the crop, the locusts
have blasted part of it ; then come the rats and the birds. . If he is
slack in housing his grain, the thieves are upon him. His horse
dies of weariness as it drags the wain. Anon the tax-gatherer ar-
il rives; his agents are armed with clubs; he has negroes with him

22O THE MONIST.

who carry whips of palm branches. They all cry, 'Give us your grain,'
and he has no easy way of avoiding their extortionate demands.
Next the wretch is caught, bound, and sent off to work without
wage at the canals; his wife is taken and chained, his children are
stripped and plundered." In the Praise of Learning we read, "The
little laborer having a field, passes his life among rustics ; he is worn
down for vines and pigs, to make his kitchen of what his fields have ;
his clothes are heavy with their weight; he is bound as a forced
laborer; if he goes forth into the open air he suffers, having to
quit his warm fireplace; he is bastmadoed with a stick upon the
legs, and seeks to save himself: but shut against him is the hall of
every house ; locked are all the chambers." Such was Egyptian
bondage.

We need not detail the situation of the wretched field laborer,
or serf, during the Middle Ages. The parallel is plain to all. It
is clear that we cannot find the Babylonian system paralleled among
the highly developed Aryans, even though their name signify
"ploughmen," till we reach the most democratic of modern nations.
From the agriculturist's view-point, America might most nearly
stand for the modern equivalent of Babylon.

As has been previously remarked, a chief excellence of the
law of Babylon was its thorough protection of the debtor. We have
as yet nothing to equal Hammurabi's safeguarding of his rights
in any other ancient code. His situation was decidedly better than
under many modern systems. As compared with the Hebrew, the
Babylonian code is immeasurably superior. No claim could be
pressed against the debtor without documentary proof. The right
of levying upon him or of attaching his property without his con-
sent was not granted. Risks on crops were divided. The failure
of a crop or its destruction by floods when the rental contract gave
the landlord a share in the crop, or when a loan in cash was made to
a struggling farmer, did not mean that the loss would fall solely
upon the debtor. In the case of renting on shares, the landlord
was held to the letter of the contract: he got nothing. In the case
of the loan, interest due for that year was cancelled, and the time
extended a year. If a loan had been made secured by a lien on the

THE PLACE OF THE CODE OF HAMMURABI. 221

crop, the handling of the harvested grain was not permitted the
creditor. Nor could he take advantage of the debtor's straits and
secure bargains by forcing a sale of the debtor's property for a
fraction of its value and buying it in. The crop conditions were
carefully noted each year, and the standard price for the season,
"the king's price," was publicly posted everywhere. Any creditor
taking a part of the crop for his debt took it at "king's price." Nor
could the creditor help himself from corn in field or in store. The
principle of exemption was known. The work-ox of a peasant could
not be levied upon : he must not be rendered unable to till his land.

Every reader of the Old Testament recognises how all this
contrasts with the Hebrew law, and with Hebrew practice as criti-
cised by the prophets. The Hebrew creditor could take everything
from the struggling peasant, save his coat. No laws existed, re-
stricting the powers of the creditor, or thwarting his rapacity. In
an instant the wretched debtor could be seized for the pettiest claim ;
the price of a pair of flimsy sandals, and sold into life-long servi-
tude. Worse still, he might raise a family while in such servitude:
the children, because of their father's need of a pair of sandals in
the remote past, are perpetual slaves. Not even in the grave could
the debtor rest. He might have been the greatest prophet of his
time, yet if he died owing a petty debt, he might be sure his relent-
less creditor could seize his children and sell them as slaves. We
have the record of a prophet's distressed widow appealing to Elisha
under just such circumstances. Even as late as Nehemiah's time,
poor Jews who wished to help in the rebuilding of the city were
compelled eventually to sell themselves, their families, and all their
belongings, for a bare sustenance. An old claim could be revived,
and a freed bondsman re-enslaved : no law forbade. This infuriated
Jeremiah.

All this was impossible in Babylonia. From her Israel could
have learned all that she most needed to learn. The Babylonian
debtor, as already stated, had the line of exemption clearly drawn;
and the claim of the creditor was confined to the estate and person
of the debtor. The latter might hire out a member of his family
to work on account of some debt, but this could not be for longer

222 THE MONIST.

than three years. Even if he were himself reduced to servitude, it
did not enslave his children, nor make a slave of his wife, nor pre-
vent his marriage with a free woman. If he were capable he might
enter business upon his own account, merely handing over to his
master annual interest on the amount invested in him. His wife
retains her freedom, and takes one-half of their jointly acquired
property for herself and the children. No claim can be made upon
the latter by the creditor-master. An account once closed could not
be reopened ; the fine for such attempt was from three to sixfold the
amount claimed.

We may add also the condition of the Aryan peasant: the law
holds him for the debts of his ancestors, as the Hebrew law did ;
and the Hindu to-day may be born hopelessly in debt for the ex-
penses of his grarfdfather's wedding; and the enormous rates of
interest will result in his paying upon the claim all his life, only to
bequeath a still heavier debt to his children. We must grasp all
this in order to appreciate the full import of the previously mentioned
new law of Deuteronomy and Ezekiel, the close student of Babylon :
the son should no longer be punished for the father. "Ye shall no
more use this proverb in Israel !"

We do not at present know of any effort to regulate rates of
interest in the code: though such sections may have existed in the
portion now defaced. The same is true with regard to rental rates.
These are referred to in the code as familiar, in the case of agri-
culture and horticulture ; but we cannot say whether they were con-
trolled by law or not. In the code the crop-rent percentage is iden-
tical with that customary in America to-day. But as to interest,
the large number of contracts showing considerable loans for a short
period, with the stipulation that there should be no interest unless
the sum was not repaid by a certain date: the sum to draw interest
thereafter — these suggest that interest was originally regarded in
the nature of a penalty for tardiness. Especially does this seem
to be the case where the contracts so often say, "if he does not pay
by a certain time he shall add one-fourth to it," without reference to
the amount of time that elapses after the money is due. As the
contracts between merchant and peddler merely indicate a division

THE PLACE OF THE CODE OF HAMMURABI. 223

of profits as the final basis of settlement, it is possible that a cer-
tain sentiment may have existed against interest or usury. Certainly
the rates remained high — twenty to twenty-five per cent, usually,
for 2000 years. We do find efforts to regulate the labor and trans-
portation problems, by a fixed scale of prices: and we know in later
times of royal efforts to regulate the prices of necessities by the
"king's price," that there might be no extortion, or "cornering" the
market. The effort most nearly resembling this in other lands we
should find in the Roman fixing of a commutation price upon cer-
tain staples, in case a tributary wished to pay taxes in produce in-
stead of cash. But the transportation tariff is fixed in Babylonia
on a chartering basis ; supposing a man to hire a vessel by the day.
The intricacies of the per-ton per-mile schedule had not found place
at the earlier period, though the general question of such expense
must have been carefully estimated: for we find in later contracts
choice allowed a debtor. He may pay a certain quantity of ripe
dates in his orchard at one time, or, F. O. B. at Nippur or Babylon,
during the next month, a much smaller quantity ; or a still smaller
quantity if delivered later at Susa. The details of commercial fluc-
tuation, transportation, and local valuation seem then perfectly
understood, and contracts embodying such calculations are made
months ahead. We know of no necessity for an inter-state commerce
law, though the length of the life and the ramifications of great
business houses give reason to suspect that the later Babylonians
eventually had the trust problem before them. But it certainly did
not exist in the times of Hammurabi: the loans of that period are
notably minute, as compared with those in Persian times; and the
trust problem must have grown from the powerful guilds or wealthy
clans. In all this field we are practically without Hebrew legislation,
but with much prophetic preaching.

We can not observe in the code, in the disposition of property,
anything that answers precisely to a will, in our sense. The appa-
rent suggestion is that if there are any special dispositions of prop-
erty, the recipient must be put in possession by the donor in his
lifetime. This would preclude the possibility of forgery, imposture,
or pleas of mental incapacity in regard to wills. But where special

224 THE MONIST.

gifts are not made, by either parent — as they may be — , there seems
no right of primogeniture recognised. In this we have a fundamental
difference from Hebrew law, and from pure Semitic law in general,
so far as we know it. But from the various banning texts we learn
that an elder brother or elder sister ranked next to the parents in
the matter of reverence and respect required; and a deficiency in
such respect entails a heavy kispu or ban upon the delinquent. This
feature again reminds us strongly of Mongolian — of Chinese stan-
dards. In early Aryan law we find a degree of uncertainty con-
cerning the proper apportionment of property, though the elder
brother seems to be regarded as the head of the undivided family ;
but this very uncertainty is so inherent from the beginning that
all Aryan systems of a later time, varied as they are, can claim to
have something in common with the primitive stage. And in such
division of goods in Babylonia the daughters must share : their por-
tion taking the form of dowry at marriage ; if not married, a daugh-
ter obtains a son's share. This again does not seem to be the early
state of Semitic law, and certainly is not the law of the Koran.
In that age, in any circumstances, whether as witnesses or as sharers
of an estate, two women were assumed to be the equivalent of one
man. A woman's property in Babylonia could not be claimed by
her husband at her death, in which respect the code is decidedly
in advance of the Koran legislation; we are not so clear as to the
early Hebrew practice at this point. In case of death without chil-
dren, whatever property was held reverted to the respective fami-
lies that had endowed the marriage in the beginning; but property
independently acquired was bestowed at the woman's pleasure. In
this detail again we find the Sumero-Semitic practice superior to
any other ancient code, and to most modern codes. We can hardly
esteem this to be Semitic law.

This comparative sketch of legal principles is hardly complete
without a statement of one fundamental difference between all
Semitic law and all modern Aryan law, of which the Romans are
recognised as the founders. We can then understand the more
clearly the real failure of the Semite to influence Western law in

THE PLACE OF THE CODE OF HAMMURABI. 225

any essential: a failure the more marked when we reflect upon his
dominance in religion.

Already has been mentioned the fact that the Semite does not
possess the abstract conception of the state, or of society, in the
sense in which we use the words in connection with law. He has
not formed the habit of thinking in abstract terms. Law is to him,
as to all Oriental peoples, the expression of a personal will, a per-
sonal authority. We cannot conceive a Semite setting up abstract
principles of justice and proceeding to assail the very gods with
them, as yEschylus or Euripides could do. If the god or king de-
creed a thing, that was law and right, for the ordinary Semite,
though it might be really distasteful to him. The king of the
land, the gods of the land, — these were also the law of the land.
What was right in Moab might be wrong for the same case in
Aram. Decisions might be diametrically opposed in the two lands,
and pronounced just in each, as expressing in each the personal
will from which all local law came.

The Roman mind could shake off such limitations, and gene-
ralise, and think more abstractly. It could readily recognise some
general principles or sentiments operant in each province or people,
irrespective of race, or creed, or social organisation. Its lawyers
soon grasped the idea of a jus gentium, contained in the summary
Quod semper, quod ab omnibus, quod ubique. The Greek dared
to storm heaven itself with such a weapon. But where he would
have advanced upon the past by openly assailing Zeus, the Hebrew
prophet would have said that the masses did not really know Zeus.
The Roman reached a system of universal law by eliminating per-
sonality, creeds, and local interests and prejudices ; producing an
abstract, unyielding, inerrant justice. This the Semite could not
do: unable to separate law from personal will, he could create a
world-system of law only by the extension of one personal will to
all the world, to all the universe. And relation to this becomes not
law, in the jurist's sense, but religion. We may understand then
why the laws of Hammurabi are given by Shamash, the Sun God,
the All-seeing Eye, God of Justice, as those of Moses are given by
Yahveh. The codes have developed alike, the same explanation is

226 THE MONIST.

offered by the lawyers and codifiers for each. They know no other
explanation for law. This is to be remembered in discussing the
problems of inspiration.

We must take one step further : the peculiarity mentioned is not
a trait found in the Semite alone, though he has given it the highest
development. This conception of law as the expression of some
personal will is just as much a peculiarity of the Filipino or the
Polynesian. It is seemingly common to mankind in earlier stages:
it but marks the period when impersonal abstract thought is not
yet possible. There is at last a parting of the ways, and necessarily
so. No satisfactory secular law and judicial system can be estab-
lished so long as every perplexity means that men must consult the
oracle of The Personal Will, instead of thinking: just as no satis-
factory religion can be established by banishing a personality and
dealing in intellectual abstractions. Law and religion but represent
two stages, two branches, two modes of thinking upon the same
problems. And thus we may conclude that the code of Hammurabi
belongs not peculiarly to the history of the Semite, but to the his-
tory of man ; and that it represents the highest secular law attained
by way of the earlier method of defining and expanding law.

A. H. GODBEY.
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

A SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

OO many attempts have been made to give a clear explanation
VsJ of consciousness that it may appear superfluous to make an-
other; there is, however, a constant human desire to know every-
thing new and reliable on the subject, and this desire seeks to be
gratified. Consciousness is one of a great number of "mysteries"
by which we are surrounded, it is like a "certain something in the
air, that all men feel, but no man can describe," its mystery arises
largely from its complexity and the smallness of our comprehension,
and as long as we act upon the unscientific idea that belief is not
to be controlled by facts or that we can safely believe without evi-
dence, we shall be confused by such mysteries. The mode of
action of any one of the senses, especially that of vision, is nearly
as great a mystery as that of consciousness. The chief explanation
of the large failure of attempts to explain consciousness is, that
they have usually been made without the aid of sufficient familiar-
ity with the fundamental principles or methods of science: — the
entire history of mankind proves that without extensive and varied
knowledge of science it is hardly possible to obtain truthful ideas
of the mysteries of nature. Consciousness is a wider subject than
that of the ordinary senses because it includes all kinds of feelings
from all parts of the body. As the subject is large, only an outline
of it is attempted in this article, and as it is complex, the article
requires attentive reading.

I. DEFINITION OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

We cannot clearly understand a subject unless we define its
chief terms ; undefined terms are used as means of evasion in dis-

228 THE MONIST.

cussion : — a true definition of it must be one which agrees with all
facts relating to the subject, and may be conveniently stated as a
clear perception of existences within and around us. According to
to a large amount and variety of scientific evidence, ordinary con-
sciousness is essentially a high degree of activity of the cerebellum
or "litttle brain," and this organ is generally recognised by phys-
iologists as being the "sensorium" or seat of feeling. We have no
proof that consciousness can exist without nervous substance.

Consciousness and unconsciousness differ only in degree, and
merge into each other by imperceptible differences. Consciousness
is a part of mental action, and the terms "consciousness" and
"perception" are nearly synonymous: it is a complex nervous ac-
tion superadded to vitality, thus trees live but do not feel; it is a
part of life in all animals, and rudiments of it exist in certain plants.
It is essentially the same in all nations and all ages; all human
beings experience substantially the same joys, griefs, pains, and
pleasures in consequence of possessing the same cerebral structures
and being acted upon by the same general powers and circum-
stances ; at the same time the varieties of consciousness are as
numerous as those of human beings.

II. MYSTERY OF THE SUBJECT.

The subject of consciousness has been greatly mystified by
an undue desire to know "the inmost nature of things," but this is
beyond our powers; we cannot "realise" the "inmost nature" of
any thing, simply because it is so extremely profound, and our
consciousness and intellect are so very finite; however much we
discover, there always remains a vast amount more to be found;
our nearest approach to that of consciousness is, that it is a special
kind of motion which only occurs in living nervous substance. To
ask what it is "in itself" is an irrational desire; in such profound
subjects we must be content to learn all we can, and wait for
further discoveries. Its "first cause" is equally inscrutable, for
the simple reason that in all cases there must be an earlier cause,
and so on without end. When we know more deeply the nature

A SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 22Q

of the senses we shall more nearly know that of consciousness,
because the senses and their organs are the immediate basis of it.
It has also been mystified by an assumption of the existence
of a ''second self" within us, distinct from our ordinary "self," but
the probably true explanation of this "second self" is the occa-
sional separate excitement of one only of our two cerebral hemi-
spheres. We know that memory, perception, observation, attention,
comparison, inference, and imagination, are all more or less acts
of consciousness: — we also know that by means of dreams, illu-
sions, etc., and inferences from them, that similar phenomena fre-
quently occur but are barely observed within us, and that these
slightly noticed cerebral actions tend to influence our conduct in
a similar manner to the fully noticed ones : — we have often a faint
degree of consciousness of our dreams on waking, but such faintly
conscious dreamy phenomena are far more consistently explained
by unequal cerebral action than by the hypothesis of a "second
self." Such sensorial actions are often unnoticed, either because
they too feebly excite the cerebellum, or the latter is either too
obtuse or too preoccupied to perceive them: but they are occasion-
ally so strong and persistent in some persons as to haunt them
after waking. Dreams are often fortuitous medleys of ideas un-
controlled by comparison and inference, and are probably produced
by the cerebral circulation exciting latent imprints of the sensorium
in an irregular manner : — they are not, however, always medleys, but
are in rare cases consistent series of thoughts and tendencies to
action automatically produced under undisturbed conditions. We
have in a slender degree occasionally the power of observing and
criticising our dreams during their occurrence, but only at great
risk of the dreams themselves being interrupted and of this power
being disconcerted by the dreams, and this indicates that the dream-
ing and observing organs are in some degree separate but very
nearly related, similarly to the sensorial and cerebral hemispheres
by means of their "commisures." Through deficiency of suitable
knowledge the ordinary waking thoughts of some persons are much
like those of dreamers. The idea of consciousness has been still
further mystified by the assertion that it still exists in some occult

230 THE MONIST.

form eternally after death : — but if the existence of myriads of
"souls" in space is a reality, the omnipresent radiations in space
should be affected, and we are far more likely to detect their exist-
ence by means of scientific appliances than by our unaided con-
sciousness, because the former are very much more sensitive than
the latter.

III. DEPENDENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS UPON NATURAL

CAUSES.

Consciousness depends upon a number of conditions and cir-
cumstances, the chief of which is the presence of nervous living
matter in a state of motion. The fundamental cause of it is the
natural energy of our environments acting through the senses, but
the immediate cause is the action of the senses themselves. Nearly
all parts of our body, and especially its outer surfaces, are supplied
with sensory nerves, and the sensorium is automatically excited
through these nerves by numberless external and internal in-
fluences ; and as these influences are of various degrees of strength,
and the sensorium varies greatly in sensitiveness, consciousness is
of all degrees of intensity, varying from the faintest perception to
the greatest pain or pleasure, from peaceful sleep to raving mad-
ness. Its degree depends upon the physical state of the brain, the
extent of its excited surface, and the intensity and suddenness of
the excitation : — it is the loudest sounds, the strongest lights, the
greatest pains and pleasures, and the most sudden of all these,
which most excite it ; in inflammation of the brain or of its mem-
branes the least sound or light excites it greatly. It is often in-
creased when several senses are simultaneously excited, thus light-
ning accompanied by thunder is very impressive. The perception
of optic images by the eye may be regarded as a part of conscious-
ness.

Consciousness is aroused by a great variety of influences, usu-
ally by all those which excite the brain or senses, its most common
cases being hunger, thirst, and desire. In consequence of the
multitude of causes which affect it, it varies from minute to minute,
and each man's brain is in a number of different conscious states in

A SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 23!

succession, thus the man asleep and awake, drunk and sober, are
very different persons. In ordinary cases the actions of the two
halves of the brain blend together similarly to those of the two
eyes, but in some cases the same individual appears in inconsistent
characters at different times in consequence of inharmonious cereb-
ral action. The degrees of this variation of consciousness in the
same human body has in some cases been so great that the "original
self" and the "second self" have entirely forgotten each other, and
the changes from one state of the sensorium to the other have hap-
pened suddenly: — such great changes as these nearly always occur
in emotional persons, and are regarded as signs of insanity. As
consciousness is not an independent entity, but an active sate of
nervous substance, its changes in such extreme cases cannot be
reliably ascribed to the existence of two different persons in the
same body, but to inharmonious action of the two cerebral hemi-
spheres. Great bodily changes cause great alterations of con-
sciousness: the change from grub to butterfly must be an extreme
one.

IV. MODE OF EXAMINING THE SUBJECT.

Further, the rise and fall of consciousness entails other changes,
thus the series of cerebral alterations attending an act of perception
does not end with it, but leads to other occurrences: — it gives rise
to trains of thought, reflex muscular actions, changes in the viscera,
etc., or its energy is stored up like the heat of the sun in coal, and
accumulates in the system, ready to be expended in action when
liberated. In such a very complex subject the human brain is
too small to grasp all the phenomena, their causes, relations, and
effects, and the best way to arrive at truth in it is not to accumulate
a large number of complex personal narratives, but to examine it
by the aid of such a theory as agrees with all known facts and all
their logical consequences. A suitable theory is supplied by the
great principles of universal causation, evolution, motion, radiation,
automatism, action and reaction, etc. It has been proved, largely
by means of the spectra of substances and by astronomy, that all
bodies, human beings included, are in a state of incessant motion,

232 THE MONIST.

both internally and in their masses, that they are in a state of con-
tinual change of motion, of increase and decrease, growth and de-
cay ; that these movements and variations of movement are the
essential causes of other changes in all living and dead substances :
that all bodies more or less automatically act and react upon each
other; that even the different invisible movements in bodies in-
fluence each other, thus every substance, whether living or dead,
is always sending rays of heat and of other forms of motion to,
and receiving such rays from, all other substances, and is thus con-
tinually influencing, and being influenced by them ; the sun, radium,
and magnets are familiar examples: — we know that rays of light
exert pressure on solid bodies ; and it has been shown by experiments
with a cube of lead weighing seventy-four hundredweight that a
variety of substances emit rays which affect a voltic cell (see Phil-
osophical Magazine, 1897). In these and many other ways every
different substance and creature behaves as a different aggregate of
movements and as a different machine.

V. DEPENDENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS UPON NATURAL

ENERGY.

We may conclude from these facts and a multitude of others
that nervous matter is always moving: — that cerebral motion is
essential to consciousness, that automatic action and reaction are
universal, that the human machine is largely automatic, and that
automatic action in the human body is essentially the same as that
in inanimate substances. There is continued action and re-action
between man and all things around and within him ; all his organs
act and re-act upon each other; we are all of us influenced by
food, weather, our servants, neighbors, creditors, the tax-collector,
by all who know us, and by all kinds of circumstances within and
without, and we re-act upon them from birth until death. Our
feelings influence our intellect and our intellect re-acts and restrains
our feelings : we feel, and by reasoning we know ; we know and con-
sequently we feel.

Some of these powers act upon us without our directly per-
ceiving it, thus by influence of food and air we grow, but we do

A SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 233

not feel the act of growth ; by that of gravity we are carried through
space at the rate of more than eighty thousand miles an hour, with-
out feeling it. Even our volition is no exception to automatic
action and re-action, thus we cannot by an effort of will alone
prevent feeling cramp, colic, or toothache. The chief natural en-
ergies are vastly stronger than man : under their dominion he is
like "clay in the hands of the potter," they move him before he
knows why, even when he commands he must first obey, and al-
though action and re-action are equivalent in every case, stronger
power universally overcomes weaker: in this way man submits to
all sorts of pains and calamities, and individual consciousness is
governed by national. We fancy that we are governed by a "spirit-
ual ego" within us, because the effects we wish follow so certainly
our volitional desires and we cannot detect their origin, but as we
cannot create energy we only act when we are acted upon, as when
our stored-up energy is transferred or set free by some unnoticed
natural change. In nearly every act of volition there is some in-
fluence so feeble, or our attention is so preoccupied, that our con-
sciousness does not perceive it, but that does not prove that it is
a spirit producing energy out of nothing. The error of believing
that "mind" is a spiritual entity is so extremely insidious and
tenacious that it deceives millions, including many of the most
learned persons. Natural energy acts throngh us as it does through
all animate and inanimate bodies, and it is only when our volitions
happen to agree with its operations that they succeed ; usually we
only try to carry them out when the natural conditions are favorable
because we know that it is useless to try when they are not. But
although we cannot directly overcome natural powers greater than
our own, we are stimulated by our failure to indirectly render them
subservient to our desires by the aid of suitable knowledge, and
this is strikingly shown by the numerous triumphs of science and
art.

VI. RELATION OF AUTOMATIC ACTION TO CONSCIOUSNESS.

Various parts of our nervous system may be automatically
active without exciting the sensorium, thus the nerves which regu-

234 THE MONIST.

late our internal organs are always active, our lungs breathe auto
matically, the heart beats unceasingly, the stomach digests during
day and night, each without exciting consciousness except when
diseased, and we even walk to a large extent automatically. Each
sense acts automatically when acted upon by its own special causes,
and appears to have a locality of its own in the sensorium. Spon-
taneity and persistency of consciousness, so necessary to profes-
sional eminence, depend largely upon training, education, and state
of bodily health. The great perfection of expression, direction,
and sense-action, which occasionally occurs in our dreams shows
how perfect even mere automatic brain-action may be when un-
disturbed.

Inanimate natural energy is the most fundamental prime-
mover in human conduct; it acts whether we feel it or not: con-
sciousness comes next, and intellect the last. We are usually im-
pelled more powerfully by our environments, poverty, lack of food,
etc., than by feeling, and more often by feeling and sentiment
than by intellect; life is too short to allow us to reason out every
action before performing it. Why is intellect so generally weaker
than feeling? Simply because it is evolved out of it, and that
during this transformation some energy is converted into heat and
and lost by diffusion: we know that thinking makes the head hot,
and that nearly all transformations of energy are attended by loss.
That the origin of consciousness is automatic is proved by the fact
that when all its causes and conditions are present and its prevent-
ives absent, we cannot by our strongest desire prevent its occur-
rence ; thus we must feel the cold of winter and the heat of sum-
mer whether we are willing or not. Consciousness, similar to all
other forms of motion, is subject to neutralisation and inhibition
by opposing influences ; one of the conditions of our being con-
scious of any particular feeling or idea is that the brain be not
preoccupied by a contradictory or a stronger one; thus we cannot
attend to a trifling matter whilst fully occupied by an opposite or
a serious one; similarly a substance cannot be in two contradictory
states, such as hot and cold, at the same instant. This inhibition
of feelings and ideas by each other explains the seeming fortitude

A SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 235

of warlike Indians, sectarian martyrs, and others, whilst being tor-
tured; their brains being filled with stronger and opposite feelings
and ideas.

Automatic physical action underlies prospective as well as im-
mediate consciousness, "we live, and move, and have our being"
in the ever-moving ether ; probably everything within and around us,
by its motion and properties, produces more or less permanent im-
pressions upon our nervous ganglia ; these impressions remain latent,
and the strongly fixed ones are always ready to be excited by various
causes. The number of such latent imprints must be enormous:
it has been estimated that the total number of nerve-cells in the
grey surface-matter of the human brain capable of receiving such
imprints is about 2000 millions, but only a small proportion of these
are considered to be used in dreams and conscious thoughts, the
others being idle. Memory is aroused by the action of various
external and internal influences upon these impressions : and during
association of ideas, different parts of the cerebrum and sensorium
act upon each other through an endless number of microscopically
fine connecting nerve fibres which compose the white portions of
the two organs. As nervous matter is a very soft solid substance
it is specially fitted for receiving impressions, and as it is very
mobile and the white nervous masses are full of nerve-fibres, it is
highly capable of transmitting them. Of the multitudes of our
bodily actions and surroundings continually existing and changing,
only a very small proportion distinctly excite our consciousness,
and the great bulk of them pass by without notice, though probably
not without producing some latent impressions upon our sensorium ;
these impressions constitute the initiating material of our dreams
and of many of our waking ideas.

VII. NERVE SUBSTANCE INDISPENSABLE.

That consciousness is really a nervous action is shown by the
circumstance that where nervous matter first appears in the long
series of living plants and animals there also consciousness com-
mences : it is further proved by the fact that the greater the degree

236 THE MONIST.

of excitability of the sensory nerves and ganglia the greater is
that of consciousness. As it only occurs when the excitement of
of the sensory-nerves and centres is sufficiently strong, it is essen-
tially a certain degree of sensorial activity. It varies greatly in
different individuals; the nerves of some persons are so sensitive
that their consciousness, hopes, and fears, vary with each passing
cloud. General consciousness is greater and more varied in man
than in any other animal, and is more reliable in trained than in
untrained persons.

VIII. LIMITATIONS OF ALL HUMAN POWERS.

Man is a very minute part of the universe (all mankind are
only about a 100 million millionth part of the earth) nearly all his
powers are extremely small in comparison with those of inanimate
nature ; his nervous system is only a part of his body, his conscious-
ness only occurs in his brain, and fully only during his waking-
state. Under the most favorable conditions his perception of sound
only extends through a few octaves, and of light not beyond the
mere red and violet rays of the solar spectrum. His power of scent
is much less than that of the dog, of vision not equal to that of a
hawk, and of rays of magnetism, wireless telegraphy, or gravita-
tion, he has no direct perception. The smallness of his conscious-
ness is chiefly due to that of his organism, and that of his intellect is
partly occasioned by losses of energy during its transformations from
that of his food to that of his judgments. During sound sleep none
of his actions or surroundings excite his sensorium, and during his
waking-state the greater portion of them are not perceived. He
requires time to perceive things, because inertia of the organs has
to be overcome, or their excitement to subside ; certain periods of
time are required to transmit nervous influence to the cerebellum,
to feel a sensation, to think an idea, to compare ideas, to form a
conclusion, or decide upon an action. It has been found by means
of experiments that the period of time required to perform a single
act of thought is about a twenty-fifth part of a second. We neither
lose consciousness nor regain it all at once, we gradually fall asleep

A SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 237

and we wake gradually from it, and consciousness increases by
degrees as our various organs enter into action, similar to motion
spreading through a large mass of machinery. We cannot instantly
realise all the details of a landscape.

We cannot have all we want, nor simultaneously possess con-
tradictory attributes: — in consequence of the smallness of his cere-
bellum, even the the most learned man is unable to fully imagine
the infinite, the absolute, or the perfect : he fails to perceive the vast-
ness of the universe, or his own immeasurable littleness or feeble-
ness in it : of the immensity of time, space, or energy, he has barely
a perception, he cannot even realise the idea of a million years, a
million miles, or the millionth of an inch. This extreme narrowness
of consciousness entails an immensity of ignorance which affects
all our thoughts and actions and is a source of innumerable "evils" :
In consequence of ignorance we overvalue trifles which stimulate
our feelings, and underestimate great things which do not excite
us: — a great majority of mankind knows very little about their
own bodies, and this ignorance largely results in producing disease,
shortening human life, and limiting human progress and popula-
tion.

In addition to the influence of size of the sensorium upon the
extent and variety of consciousness, that of its quality must be im-
portant, because we know that favorable heredity, training, and
education tend to produce intellectual ability, refined sentiment,
and perception of truth ; it is well known that a healthy state of the
brain and well-balanced consciousness are necessary to proper con-
duct. Better quality may more than compensate for smaller quan-
tity and surface of the brain, and a smaller brain may do more good
work than a larger one. Great size and surface of brain promote
ability by affording a larger receptacle for knowledge, whilst supe-
rior quality accompanies better selection and use of it; wisdom is
a nobler possession than knowledge. Some persons of very great
ability have had very large brains, and some who have possessed
large brains have had very erroneous ideas through deficiency of
truthful principles.

r.>i> ;; ' ' •

238 THE MONIST.

IX. UNRELIABILITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

Consciousness, when imperfectly corrected by training and
knowledge, is essentially crude and unreliable, and often a danger-
ous faculty; it is subject to a great variety of illusions, delusions,
and hallucinations: thus a stick seems bent when thrust obliquely
into water, and the sun appears to revolve around the earth. The
human sensorium occasionally sees, hears, and feels, things which
do not exist, and which are merely illusions excited in it by natural
causes, such as habit, expectancy, desire, nervous excitement, etc.,
thus we occasionally hear our alarm clock ring or a knock at our
bedroom door, when they do not really occur; or a man whose leg
has been cut off, still feels sensations of his toes. We all of us
suffer more or less from uncorrected feeling, and the number of
human errors, delusions, illusions, failures of memory, accidents
and crimes, due to untrained consciousness, is immense. The fre-
quency of disordered consciousness is shown by the great number
of lunatics. The only fundamental remedy for these "evils" is
discovery and diffusion of new knowledge.

Consciousness is largely modified by our dual anatomical struc-
ture, especially by that of our chief nervous ganglia. The human
organism is largely double : its limbs and most of its internal organs
are in pairs; the sense organs, brain, cerebellum, and spinal cord
are each divided vertically into two similar organs or halves, and in
each case the single organ or the half one usually acts in place of,
supplements, or corrects, the actions of the other: thus a man hav-
ing only one lung, kidney, or leg, may live: — we can hear better
with two ears and see better with two eyes than with one. Simi-
larly we feel and think more fully and correctly with the two halves
of the sensorium and cerebellum than with one, provided they are
alike and healthy ; and it has been observed that "persons suffering
from disease of one-half of the brain only, often lose the power of
comparing and reasoning correctly." In consequence of the duality
of its nervous system, "the chameleon is able to allow one side of its
body to lie torpid in deep sleep, while the other side is perfectly

A SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 239

awake," and as its two eyes and optic lobes can act independently
it is able to look in opposite directions at the same instant.

Discordant action of the two halves of the human brain largely
affords an explanation of the peculiar phenomena of the "second
self," double consciousness, and somnambulism. The cerebral hemi-
spheres are not always alike in size or condition, in some cases one
is diseased, or is at intervals stronger or more excited than the
other. In consequence of this occasional unbalanced power of the
brain, the individual is at one period governed more in his thoughts
and actions by one hemisphere than by the other, and at other
periods the reverse, and his conduct is inconsistent.

The consciousness produced by comprehensive ideas is often
less exciting than that due to small personal matters, because the
feelings are not involved, and because the greatest truths are fre-
quently inconspicuous: — whilst it is the noisy, violent, and sudden
phenomenon which most excites, it is the long-continued, incessant,
and feeble ones, which ultimately produce the greatest effect; and
small habits, by long continuance form human character. It is
similar throughout inanimate nature ; given unlimited time, the
smallest cause produces infinite effect: thus mountains are washed
away by mere drops of rain.

Our unnoticed bodily changes bring us gradually to death ;
multitudes of persons die prematurely, or become insane by the slow
progress of insidious disease, and this is one of the ways by which
the powerful influences of nature limit the world's population. We
exaggerate the effects of alcoholic over-drinking because they are
so palpable to our consciousness, whilst we minimise the more se-
rious ones of over-eating because it requires more intellect to per-
ceive them. In various ways we live in a state of false security
through the narrow limits of our sensorium and consciousness;
thus national decay is so slow that many persons doubt its existence,
or only perceive it after it has largely advanced. As we are largely
compelled to be ignorant by circumstances and by our limited con-
sciousness we cannot be fully expected to believe or understand the
greatest conclusions of science, and hence we find many persons
quite impervious to clear scientific truths. In the midst of all this

240 THE MONIST.

the painful effects of ignorance compel us to seek knowledge, but
even in producing new impressions on our sensorium by means of
scientific research we do not actually create new knowledge but
only evolve it out of the evidence existing within and around us,
and had we sufficiently extensive and comprehensive faculties we
might reliably predict all that will be from all that is: — we already
do so in the subject of eclipses and others. Successful prediction
is the most certain test of truth.

X. GENERAL BASIS OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

Consciousness is manifestly based upon the actions of the
senses: — the senses are founded upon the mechanical, physical,
chemical, and vital properties of their organs, and are intimately
related to the great scientific principle of universal natural causa-
tion, the ever-present conditions of time, space, and motion, and
to all the modes of motion, known as heat, light, electricity, radia-
tion, etc. We are conscious because our sensorium and our organs
of sense move, and they move because their excitants move, and
the stronger the movements of the excitants and of our senses, the
greater, usually is the degree of consciousness. We perceive things
because they act upon and move us, and we move because we per-
ceive ; we are painfully moved by witnessing distress. Throughout
nature motion is not created, but only transferred, transformed,
diffused, or stored-up; the only cause of motion is some previous
motion, and so on without end so far as we know; that which has
no motion cannot move our senses nor our muscles. Human con-
sciousness is excited by the same universal motion which incessantly
moves all inanimate bodies. All life is motion, and the only way
to keep alive is to keep in motion : when we fall asleep we lose
movement and are less alive. Heat is a species of internal motion,
and the human body produces about three times as much heat
during the day as during the night when we are not conscious.
All light, heat, and sound are vibrations, they affect our conscious-
ness even when they appear to be uniform.

A SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 24!

XI. RELATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS TO CAUSATION AND

MOTION.

The relation of consciousness to motion and to change of mo-
tion is very profound: the fact that exclusion of light and sound
quiets the brain, proves that cerebral movement is intimately re-
lated to them. Similar to every other action of material substances,
consciousness is inseparable from universal natural causation ; i. e.,
it always happens a minute period after its immediate cause, and
this is owing to inertia of the sensorium, etc., having to be over-
come:— to arouse it, a movement must be sufficiently fast, but not
too rapid, thus the movement of the hour-hand of a watch is not
immediately perceptible, and that of a very rapidly revolving axle
is also not perceived. Simple unvarying motion has but little
effect upon our sensorium; it is only when some sudden change of
motion (which is itself a movement) occurs within or around us,
and produces an alteration in that organ, that consciousness hap-
pens. A mother wakes when her infant cries, but a miller wakes
when his mill stops ; we only know two new shillings from each
other when we can detect some slight difference between them.
Very uniform influences make but little impression upon our con-
sciousness ; thus we cannot directly perceive the existence of time
or space, the great velocity of the earth in its orbit, nor even the
influence of atmospheric pressure or of gravitation upon us, and we
only know with certainty of their existence by comparing impres-
sions and drawing inferences from their differences. A perfectly
uniform electric current is but little perceived, whilst even a feeble
one, if slowly intermittent, produces a strong sensation ; suddenly
varying strong light also strains the sensorium. An electric cur-
rent varying with immense frequency in opposite directions, as in
Tesla's experiments, but little excites the sensorium, because each
successive opposite wave neutralises the effect of the immediately
previous one before the inertia of the nervous matter has been over-
come. The inhibitory effect of opposite phenomena upon each
other is universal, and indicates the essential mechanical nature of
all action, whether conscious or unconscious.

242 THE MONIST.

The very foundation of consciousness, and of all human con-
duct, whether conscious or unconscious, moral or immoral, lies
deep in the movements, properties, and capacities of bodies. All
our actions, whether bodily or cerebral, appear to be capable of
being represented as in harmony with a perfect mechanical sys-
tem: and parallels of all of them may be found in mechanics, but
the labor of showing this clearly would be great. The neutralising
and conflicting effects of opposite movements of masses or mole-
cules upon each other, are essentially similar to the inhibition of
feelings and ideas by contradictory ones. If all material bodies were
perfectly alike in properties, they would have very little effect upon
each other, but as they are all different, and as no two men are
entirely alike there is continual conflict. It is differences of conscious
impressions and ideas that largely keep mankind in motion, and which
cause collision between the advancing and retarding sections, the
intelligent and the ignorant, the scientific and sectarian: and we
know that bodies moving at different rates or in different direc-
tions, cannot remain united.

XII. RELATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS TO CHEMICAL ACTION.

That consciousness is within the domain of scientific experi-
ment is proved by the fact that it can be increased, decreased, or
destroyed, by various natural agents ; thus alcohol, strong tea,
quinine, strychnine, or rise of bodily temperature, increase it: —
chloroform, morphia, chloral, trional, etc., decrease it; — whilst a
small quantity of prussic acid, or a concussion of the brain, de-
stroy it altogether: — great thirst, or cerebral inflammation produces
intense consciousness. That it is intimately related chemically to
the oxygen dissolved in the arterial blood of the brain is shown
by the circumstances that during excitement of mania, there is
great oxidation and waste of brain, the products of which, in form
of phosphates, are found in the urine: — the rapid waste of brain
also during deep meditation limits the duration of our power of
attention. One of the methods of reducing consciousness is by
diminished the oxygen in the circulation: thus many animals pro-

A SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 243

mote sleep by covering their noses and breathing the impure de-
oxygenised air from their lungs. The circulation of duly oxygen-
ised blood through our arteries during the waking-state is a con-
stant cause or condition of feeling, thought, and action. The great
fact that consciousness is dependent upon many natural conditions
proves that it is itself natural; and we are not morally justified in
fixedly believing without evidence that it is supernatural.

Farther: — there is a systematic order of relation between it
and other natural phenomena: — thus the sense-organs are evolved
out of material food by vital processes, the senses out of the par-
ticular -structures of those organs, consciousness out of the senses,
comparison out of dual acts of consciousness, and inference and
reasoning out of comparison. During this series of changes the
stored-up energy of food is transformed into vital energy of the
sense-organs, that into the energy of the senses ; the energy of the
senses becomes that of consciousness, and that of consciousness
turns into that of reasoning-power through the medium of compari-
son, which is itself essentially dual perception. In this order energy
of intellect is produced, and some heat is lost during the process.

XIII. SENSORIAL IMPRESSIONS.

The sensorium is a storehouse of memory, and an incomplete
register of our pains and pleasures. The latent impressions made
upon it are fixed by repetition and habit, ready to be revivified
by associated ideas, and by the oxygen dissolved in the blood,
Much of our happiness and misery depends upon these imprints;
if they are untruthful they are liable to produce pain because they
contradict each other, and those persons who have a mixture of
truthful and untruthful ones, often do not know what course to
pursue.

Multitudes of persons suffer in this manner, and are driven to
seek consolation in irrational hopes and unprovable ideas, by the
clamor of their desires. Under the influence of cerebral excite-
ment and memory malicious persons are rendered liable to suffer
from uncontrollable malicious dreams and ideas, and in some cases

244 THE MONIST.

have even committed murder and suicide whilst under their in-
fluence. The foregoing and a multitude of other "evil" effects due
to unregulated consciousness, show the necessity of truthful ideas,
proper food, pure air, judicious exercise, and pure blood, to healthy
consciousness. It is well known that gout makes the sensorium
irritable.

XIV. DEPENDENCE OF MORALITY UPON CONSCIOUSNESS.

The relation of consciousness to morality is very extensive.
"As we feel, so we act," unless intellect prevents it. All moral
acts are conscious ones, and the conscious state is a requisite con-
dition of all moral action; we are not considered morally respon-
sible for acts performed by us whilst we are unconscious, nor even
for those we commit during dreams or somnambulism, nor whilst
we are insane: — the compulsory influence of natural causes is
usually recognised in such cases, but how far a person is allowed
to injure his fellows even when compelled to do so by internal or
external circumstances, differs in every different case and depends
upon a variety of conditions. Our feelings compel us not only to
commit "evil" but also to resist it.

Simple automatic consciousness, uncorrected by knowledge
and inference, is frequently a great deceiver, thus we often wrongly
estimate magnitudes, numbers, distances, periods, volumes, and
weights ; we make mistakes with regard to existences, events, per-
sons, forms, colors, and appearances, and this gives rise to innumer-
able false beliefs, lawsuits, sectarian and political conflicts, wars,
diseases, accidents, and crimes. Our senses and feelings afford us
a mixture of truth and error, from which we have to sift the truth
by means of experiments, comparison, inference, and analysis. The
actions of all our limbs, organs, and faculties, are similarly more or
less unreliable, and even our most highly corrected scientific knowl-
edge is frequently only approximate. We are all of us in different
degrees "blind leaders of the blind," and a large proportion of the
pains we suffer and inflict is due to the circumstance that we are
kept in ignorance by our very limited powers. Similar to moths fly-
ing into the flame of a candle, so we are compelled by our instincts to

A SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 245

hasten unknowingly toward disease, insanity, crime and death.
Untruthful consciousness misleads millions, and we are compelled
by natural influences to expend much of our time in elaborating
and diffusing untruths and illusions, and but little in discovering
new knowledge.

XV. DEPENDENCE OF BELIEF UPON CONSCIOUSNESS.

Consciousness and belief are closely allied, as we feel, so we
usually believe, especially in difficult subjects: internal and ex-
ternal influences cause our feelings, and these, with or without cor-
rection by intellect, determine our opinions ; we cannot always stay
to investigate. The great advantage of consciousness in causing
us to believe and act is its quickness, and that of intellect is its
greater reliability; it needs more time to reason than to feel be-
cause reasoning requires us to compare two or more feelings or
impressions. Consciousness alone produces only blind belief, but
reason produces reliable conviction. As reason is frequently weaker
than feeling, it is our higher faculties rather than our lower ones
which most require stimulating. Consciousness is fallible because
it does not compare its impressions but acts immediately upon them ;
it determines our conduct more frequently than our intellect be-
cause it acts wholly automatically; but when it has been properly
trained it is often our best guide and produces similar results. Auto-
matic consciousness is like a "ready reckoner," it saves us the
trouble of calculating:

"Reason, however able, cool at best,
Cares not for service, or but serves when prest,
Stays till we call, and then not often near
But honest instinct comes a volunteer."

— Pope.

XVI. LIMITED SENSITIVENESS OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNSSS.

Our senses and consciousness are very dull in comparison with
inanimate agents, a wave of light travels 700,000 times faster than
one of nerve-energy, a photographic surface detects thousands of
heavenly bodies which we cannot even see with the aid of a telescope ;

246 THE MONIST.

a bolometer is estimated to be about 200,000 times more sensitive
to heat than our skin; a galvanometer can show the influence of
one part of chlorine in 500,000 million parts of water, whilst our
taste cannot with certainty distinguish one part in a million; a
photograph is a much more extensive, minute, and certain record
than our brain ; and even the process of reasoning can be mechan-
ically performed by means of Jevous's "logical machine." We de-
pend very largely upon the properties of scientific appliances for
our beliefs; the microscope, spectroscope, telescope, photography,
the kinematograph, etc., have brought a new world of impressions
into our consciousness, and as such instruments, processes, and
methods are free from personal prejudice, and vastly surpass in
delicacy and reliability our senses and perception, it appears highly
desirable that they be used for testing the idea of telepathy and
the hypothesis of the existence of human spirits in space.

Jnil ,t'»tbH N'Hn ••,,;•. .;«>...-'>.;;> ,110 •• .-.- ;. -. •:• b
XVII. RELATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS TO TRUTHFULNESS.

The relations of the sensorium and consciousness to truthful-
ness are of a most practical kind; immovable false beliefs, fixed
impressions without evidence, and ignorance or lack of cerebral
impressions, are dangerous, and contradictory ones destroy peace
of mind. As the sensorium of criminals and insane persons is
moved and governed by the same natural influences and laws as
those of the wisest men, we are all of us compelled to believe more
or less untruth, and are largely unable to get rid of false impres-
sions. Consciousness includes both truthful and untruthful im-
pressions; we often believe, though we cannot really know, that
which is untrue ; and without proper and sufficient evidence we can-
not with certainty know anything. The properly trained sensorium
can contain a much larger number of impressions than the untrained
one, because its impressions do not contradict each other, and are
systematically united together by truthful principles. The phe-
nomena of false belief, improvable belief, belief without evidence,
delusions and illusions, belong to the subject of mental disorders;
and the question as to how far we are morally justified in believing

A SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 247

serious statements without evidence, or believing and diffusing
unprovable statements in such matters, belongs to the subject of
scientific morality. The moral duty of improving our minds by
receiving the truths of science is already to some extent recognised.
The hopes of the human race depend largely upon scientific correc-
tion and extension of consciousness: — the discovery of new knowl-
edge is the starting-point of human progress, and as the possession
and application of great truths is the chief remedy for the pains
and "evils" of life, original scientific research is a very practical
matter, but the process entails a vast amount of labor.

As consciousness and all our faculties are so extremely limited
in comparison with the contents and powers of the universe, it is
not surprising that only a few persons can fully realise the idea of
universal natural causation, or "whatever is, must be" under all
the conditions and circumstances, and consequently the necessity
of crime, "evil," and conflict. In the continual presence of so much
pain and misery in nearly all directions, it is almost beyond human
power to even faintly imagine the still further truth that "whatever
is, is right," yet both these conclusions must be come to if we scien-
tifically and thoroughly examine the subject.

The chief claims of the foregoing "view of consciousness"
upon our attention are: — it agrees with the principle of universal
natural causation and with all well-verified knowledge: — it involves
no real self-contradictions: — by its agreement with these, and by
its self-consistency it gives us confidence in the natural powers
which govern us, and imparts greater confidence, courage, and
carefulness to all our thoughts and actions: — it affords us con-
solation by showing that our trials, if properly accepted, are often
our greatest blessings; — and by its truthful explanation of the
real cause of the shortcomings of mankind it makes us reasonably
tolerant towards all men : — but as this view is a comprehensive one,
it cannot be accepted, nor its advantages secured without the labor
of acquiring sufficient suitable knowledge.

G. GORE.

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND.

THE PRAGMATIC INTERPRETATION OF THE
CHRISTIAN DOGMA.

A SUGGESTION AS TO THE NATURE OF REALITY.

TT7"HILE the pragmatic point of view is suggestive to many as
* ' a working hypothesis, it seems that there is much uncer-
tainty as to the consequences if it is taken as an ultimate statement
of reality. It is felt to be a view of things that has a measure of
truth but which is at the same time subject to serious limitations.
In a word, it is doubtful what sort of a reality it presupposes and
with what sort of a reality it is able to satisfy those who follow it
consistently. I do not presume to hold any of the illustrious ex-
pounders of pragmatism responsible for the interpretation here
offered. It is simply an attempt to explain what pragmatism means
to me. It is no doubt an inadequate and onesided statement, but
this is an evil inherent in all our philosophy and from which there
is not the slightest possibility of our escaping. If there is any one
point that seems to be a fundamental one pragmatically it is that
every thing and all things that we can possibly say are essentially
abstractions from and hence inadequate to the reality of what we
know in immediate experience.

As a philosophical method pragmatism seems to be primarily
an attempt to interpret consistently the world of expereience, its
movement and its moments, It is thus that it is distinguished from
science, which is concerned with the contents of experience. It
is distinct from previous philosophy in that it does not seek to con-
struct by logical processes a reality that lies partially or completely
beyond the world of experience. In so far as philosophy has been

PRAGMATIC INTERPRETATION OF CHRISTIAN DOGMAS. 249

concerned with things or contents, as such, its field has not been
different in kind from that of science. It has been rather mediaeval
science, vaguely guessing at what science failed to discover, and
finding, as science extended its outposts, that its only ultimate and
secure ground was in the sphere entirely beyond all possible ex-
perience. It is needless to say that the pragmatist stands for some-
thing radically different from this. He proposes to deal with a
reality but not one that the progress of science will eventually take
from him. His realities are the moments and movements of ex-
perience as it deals with the realities of science.

As suggested above, the real, whatever it is, is a great deal
larger than can be stated in any formula or series of formulas. Our
philosophies as well as our sciences are abstractions, and are there-
fore true only relatively. We shall try in this paper to illustrate
by means of a particular abstraction, the nature and limitations of
the real that a pragmatic view of things seems to afford us, and fur-
ther to show that it is a case typical of all our attempted formula-
tions of experience. By experience we mean not that of the empiri-
cist, nor something present to some absolute consciousness after the
manner of the idealist, but rather experience as it is naively under-
stood when one says he knows that this task is hard because he has
tried it, or as when one says that he can sympathise with us be-
cause he has already experienced sorrow. It may roughly be called
the world that appeals to us directly, the world in which are our
values and in which we work, struggle, aspire, win and fail. No
philosophic system or science has ever given us an adequate descrip-
tion of it, nor have they ever stated its meaning as a whole. When
the last word has been said we feel that it has all been extremely
inadequate as compared with concrete experience. The condition
under which alone a scientific or philosophic statement can appeal
to us with any force is that it be taken in a context similar to that in
which it arose. To take an extreme case, the theory of Thales that
all things are made of water, would not seem as unilluminating to
us as it probably does, if we could reproduce a concrete situation
similar to the one that led him to make his famous hypothesis. Phil-
osophic and scientific systems are then simply formulations of some

250 THE MONIST.

particular aspects of experience that have for some reason come
acutely to attention. The reality of immediate experience seems to
fall apart, its elements to be in conflict. We seek a statement to bring
together the conflicting elements and the statement is valid in so far
as it does this and no farther.

It is a matter of indifference what we have to say about the
more ultimate meaning of our working hypotheses. We may say,
if we choose, that because this or that hypothesis works, in so far
it is a correct statement of the nature of the ultimately real. Func-
tionally the working hypothesis has no claim to being a statement
of ultimate reality beyond its meeting this crisis or others similar to
it. It may also be noted that there is no appeal from immediate ex-
perience or from that which resolves its tensions. The only way
to discredit the former is to bring forth another experience that is
more immediate or of wider extent.

Suppose for a moment we assume that there is a reality beyond
that of our stream of experience, or possible experiences ; a reality
that is supernatural or at least greater than our experience but of
which our experience is in some way a part. Concerning this hypo-
thetical larger reality we may make a certain supposition on the
basis of which there is sought a control of some present tension.
It is assumed that there is something real that does not fully enter
into experience but which must nevertheless be acted upon if that
which is in experience is to be dealt with adequately. The theories
of atoms and their modes of combination within the molecule are
illustrations of the legitimacy and necessity of this type of assump-
tion in physical science. The religious consciousness furnishes a
similar illustration. Here also there is the hypostatising of an
order of existence that does not enter into immediate experience.
There is a supposition of a universal moral order, of a supernatural
being or beings that have some connnection with the process of our
experience. Particular things are undertaken on the strength of
such moral order or of such a supreme being. A crisis or problem
arises which to the religious consciousness seems inexplicable ex-
cept on the supposition of a God who is just, or jealous, or loving.
It is clear that the only basis for such an assumption is the presence

PRAGMATIC INTERPRETATION OF CHRISTIAN DOGMAS. 25!

of a real experience which seems to demand some hypothesis to
make it intelligible. All may not agree that the particular hypoth-
esis offered is a satisfactory one, but that is immaterial here. Mani-
festly the point of emphasis is the experience that is to be made in-
telligible and only secondarily is a more ultimate form of existence
implied. It is because the emphasis is where we have indicated that
it is maintained that the true function of philosophy is to attempt
a description, not of some more ultimate reality than that present
in our finite experience, but rather the exact and objective condi-
tions under which hypotheses appear and their relation to the on-
ward movement of experience. Strictly speaking, aside from our
world of experience and its successful hypotheses there is no more
ultimate existence as far as philosophy is concerned. We may here
recur to the fundamental limitation of all thinking to which reference
was made above. Restated briefly it is this : thought and the products
of thought are to be interpreted, and hence are valid only, with
reference to certain crises or tensions that arise in action. It is
not permissible to take the conceptual machinery thus evolved
and hold that it gives us a cue to the construction of a reality
beyond experience. The concepts of the chemist are true because
they enable him to control his reactions, but he has not the least
right to assume that he has therefore in them an account of the
ultimate nature of matter. They give an account of it only as it is
concerned in practical experiences of the sort with which the chem-
ist deals. It is an almost universal tendency, however, to take these
statements that seem to give us definite control under specific con-
ditions and to generalise them into dicta about absolute existence.
As opposed to this tendency it is here maintained that our concepts
are only functionally valid and do not refer to ontological realities.
All our realities are of the functional variety. They are realities
because they serve these definite functions, and for no other reason.
Some of them have a wider variety of uses than others and hence
appear in a greater number of our practical experiences. As such
they seem to have a high degree of objectivity. "Objective reality"
is in fact our name for those elements which appear in the greatest
variety of situations and mediate the most varied experiences. Such

252 THE MONIST.

a statement does not dispute the reality of the world but simply
tells in what it consists. It amounts simply to this, that whatever
else reality may be, as far as we are concerned, it is something in-
volved in the onward movement of our experience and all our de-
scriptions of it are with reference to its function in this onward
movement.

This functional view of reality is very suggestive when applied
to the facts of the religious consciousness. The religious attitude
is of all others pre-eminently a practical one, that is, it is primarily
concerned with the conduct of life. An examination of it, from this
view-point, should be practically suggestive in these days of reli-
gious reconstruction. It should throw light upon the vexed ques-
tion as to the place and authority of the dogmas of past ages in the
modern religious consciousness. It is worth while to inquire
whether they should be rejected in to to as false or whether they
have a certain validity, and if so, what. Does the dogma of the
Trinity, for instance, have any claim from this point of view to
being a valid statement of the being of God ? We should note first
the context in which some of these dogmas originated.

It is well known that New Testament Christianity was not dog-
matic but practical. That is, it did not promulgate the dogmas of
a system of religion but was the exponent of a certain manner of
life. "The teachings of Jesus do not appear in a systematic form,
but in terms of life and social relations. It requires laborious re-
search and reconstruction to formulate them into scientific state-
ments. Neither do the apostles present the Gospel in a theology,
although doubtless they come nearer to it than Jesus does, and that
is why theology took its point of departure from them rather than
from Christ. But still, even with them, while the theological mate-
rial is more accessible, there is no systematic arrangement nor at-
tempt at true philosophical explanation. They wrote for specific
practical purposes, and always massed their teachings so as to bear
upon the end in view .... The New Testament is a book of religious
truth, not of theological science ; and it is content to state this truth
in its practical aspects, upon the sole authority of Jesus Christ, and

PRAGMATIC INTERPRETATION OF CHRISTIAN DOGMAS. 253

not because its philosophical foundations have been worked out
and approved."1

"The distinctively theological interest which first began to make
itself strongly felt in the church during the second century centered
immediately in Christology and the doctrine of the Trinity. These
doctrines were converted into dogmas by the first six general coun-
cils. . . .They are justly called the Greek contribution to Christian-
ity, for they were born of the Greek spirit, and their form and de-
velopment were decisively determined by Greek philosophy. That
these dogmas soon ceased to be living issues and to find a place in
the interests of men, did not disturb their theological authority, but
rather strengthened it. The fact that they became petrified made
them an all the more satisfactory, because unshakable, foundation
for a church that was built upon the traditions of the past."2

It is this development of practical belief into dogmas that we
wish to examine. There are a number of problems involved in
such an examination. One of them is c'ir tendency to generalise
our practical concepts into statements of ultimate reality. Does
such a procedure render them of more practical significance, or
does it rather indicate that the practical need that called them forth
has vanished, and that new needs have taken their place? We hold
that it was not merely because the Church came into contact with
Greek thought that its practical concepts were turned into dogmas
but that it was due to a certain peculiarity of the development of
experience. Another problem is as to the legitimacy of such a
generalisation and the implication as to the reality of the resulting
concepts.

We may use the doctrine of the Trinity as our first illustration.
As we have seen, it does not appear as a dogma in the New Testa-
ment, for primitive Christianity was concerned with the concrete
problems of life. Thus the concepts on which the dogma was later
founded and which are to-day interpreted in the light of the dogma,
were essentially the expression of definite practical situations and
problems. It is true the idea of the Trinity was present, but purely

1 Osborn, The Recovery and Restatement of the Gospel, pp. 171, 172.
1 Osborn, p. 75.

254 THE MONIST.

as a practical concept. It had developed in the centuries immediately
preceding the Chrisian era under the influence of Greek thought.
It grew out of the notion that God could not act directly upon the
world but only through certain intermediaries, as angels, his word,
his spirit, etc. Hence when anything occurred which seemed to de-
mand the explanation of supernatural influence, it was natural to
attribute it to the spirit of God or to his angels. In this form it is
not a dogma but simply a working concept that is in harmony with
the current notion of God.

This is certainly the context of its appearance in the New Testa-
ment. Wherever the Spirit is mentioned it is with reference to
just such practical problems or crises within experience, problems
that demanded some sort of explanation. For example the mys-
terious conception of Mary is explained thus. The baptism of
Jesus differs from that of John by the presence in it of this divine
element. Certain peculiar states of mind, or changes of mental atti-
tude that seem to transcend experience come to attention, and these
are interpreted as caused by the Holy Ghost.3 That it is essentially
a practical concept comes out most clearly when Jesus seeks to allay
the sorrow of the disciples over his departure by promising the
Holy Ghost as a comforter in his place. In no case do we find ref-
erence to the Spirit except when some real or conceived situation
of life is in the foreground. If with their peculiar heritage of thought
these practical situations were met in the light of such a concept
of the relation of God to man, we shall certainly not wish to deny
its validity, but to maintain that it was essentially illogical to turn
this doctrine into a dogma and postulate as ontologically real what

3 As examples note the case of Zacharias cited in Luke i. 15, 35; that of
Elizabeth in the same chapter, 41, 67; that of Simeon, Luke ii. 35. So also
through the concept of the Holy Ghost is explained the state of mind that
lay back of otherwise unaccountable actions. Thus in Acts iv. 31, "They were
all filled with the Holy Ghost." It is a means by which one may be endowed
with wisdom, Luke xii. 12; an assistance in defending the faith, Mark
xii. 36. It is the agency by which one's entire mental attitude may be
changed, as in Acts viii. 15, 17, 18, 19; x. 44, 45, 46; xi. 15-16; xv. 8; xix. 2-6;
Titus iii. 5. Prophetic power is to be explained by its presence, Luke ii. 26;
iii. 22. Our own attitude of life is modified by it, Romans xiv. 17; xv. 13;
i Thes. i. 6.

PRAGMATIC INTERPRETATION OF CHRISTIAN DOGMAS. 255

had reality only as it served certain functions in concrete life. How
could its practical significance be enhanced by its being generalised
into an ultimate view as to the nature of the person of God ? Every
thinker must feel that the reality of God is far greater than can be
crystallised in any such relation of son, spirit, and father. Such
concepts are simply ways of making his infinitude come into working
contact with our life. If the concept is recognised as a working one
then succeeding generations with a different intellectual heritage
and a different practical conception of God are not so likely to have
the older point of view forced upon them. As we change, and our
problems with us, it certainly is by all means likely that our inter-
pretations of events should change also.

As with the question of the spirit of God, so with that of the
Son. His significance was certainly a functional one. Whether
we take the standpoint of those of his time who expected a Messiah
or that of the Christian world of to-day, we must admit that he was
significant to them and is significant to us primarily because he is
conceived as the mediator of certain definite experiences. With the
modern Christian the significance of Christ is certainly as an inter-
preter of God. The phrase, "What would Jesus do," however ob-
jectionable it may be, is at least evidence of this attitude. The
dogma as to his metaphysical relation to God is meaningless except
in so far as he is also functionally real. If the orthodox could only
realise that this is the point of primary import, there would be less
useless controversy with th.e more liberal believers. On the other
hand, the liberal needs to realise that this tendency to crystallise a
functional reality into a dogma is not mere perversity but itself
needs to be explained and located and is no doubt an unavoidable
peculiarity of the movement of thought.

In the New Testament times it is of course true, as every one
knows, that the followers of Christ conceived him rather in terms
of a definite earthly mission, more or less, of course, in the light of
the earlier Jewish notions, and by no means as bearing a certain
metaphysical relation to God. He bore a definite relation to the
glory of Israel, if not temporarily, at least in a spiritual sense. The
conclusion is then that both the son and the spirit were originally

256 THE MONIST.

the embodiments of certain practical attitudes related in a certain
way to the tendency that became prominent among the Alexandrian
Jews to exalt God infinitely above all that is earthly, human, and
imperfect, even above all human conception. "From the idea that
God is absolutely incomprehensible and infinitely exalted flows the
other that man cannot enter into direct relations with him, that he
can neither know nor tell what he is."4

''This idea that God is infinitely exalted above the world and
without direct relations with it, necessarily led to the recognition
of intermediate beings, through whom relations might be made pos-
sible."5

The point of the whole discussion is simply that there existed
at that time a certain attitude of mind that could best view its on-
ward movement in terms of son and spirit, and God himself could
likwise be best conceived, and no doubt always can be for that mat-
ter, as a father. It is further held that these concepts interpreted
to the believer certain practical situations, gave him their value, so
to speak, and hence freed him for further action in similar directions.
We do not question but that such an attitude may still exist and
hence demand such concepts for its expression. But the point of
emphasis, in any case, is upon the tension within a certain type of
experience, rather than upon any reality outside this tension. It
is only when the specific need has passed, or at least is no longer
realised acutely that the conceptual tools are brought into clear
consciousness and come to be regarded as having a reality of their
own. It is then that the functional reality ceases and the dogma
takes its place. If a certain type of mind finds the concept of the
Trinity significant, it is certainly a significant point of view, but it
does not follow, as has already been said, that because it is true
functionally it is also true without reference to any function, that
is, ontologically. To hold that it is, is to commit, as it seems to me,
a supreme philosophical fallacy. Our only realities are functional
realities. If there are others we know not of them.

4 Piepenbring, Theology of the Old Testament, p. 250.

5 Ibid., p. 250.

PRAGMATIC INTERPRETATION OF CHRISTIAN DOGMAS. 257

This point of view may be applied with profit to a number of
other Christian doctrines. I quote directly from an article by H.
Barker in the eleventh volume of the Intern. Journal of Ethics.
Traditional religion embodied "a great religious or ethical concep-
tion, that of a suffering saviour-god. Such a conception appealed
directly to faith; it was a gospel of salvation that told of a divine
love and pity greater than it was possible to hope for, and summoned
men to strive with all their energies to be worthy of their God. Such
a gospel was worth believing. It was a true object of faith, and its
moral grandeur was a legitimate motive for faith. On the other
hand the traditional creed set forth certain miraculous or super-
natural facts which guaranteed the reality of its ethical conception."
Barker ilustrates the above point as follows: The essence of the
belief in the resurrection of Christ on the religious side is the con-
viction that the personality of Christ has a spiritual value which
constrains us to think of it as eternal. A universe in which it
passed away and lesser things remained, would for the Christian
be irrational. Now this conviction can as little be proved by any
ghost-like appearances of Christ after his death as it can be refuted
by their absence. If such appearances counted for anything they
would be as important in the case of any other man of whom they
have been asserted .... The truth is that the Christian's religious
conviction about Christ craves for some visible sign and confirma-
tion of its truth, and the resurrection seems to faith to be such a
sign. The error lies in turning a symbol which only faith can appre-
hend into the very premise by which the faith itself is proved ....
Thus when the symbol begins to be used as a logical premise we
may be sure that the faith has lost its intrinsic certainty and is
seeking to quiet itself in some outward and inferior guarantee."
Putting this point in the terms that we have been using, we shall
say that when the practical situations cease to be acutely felt the
mental attitude that belonged with them in a manner holds over
and finds its guarantee, no longer in its practical efficiency in a
certain type of experience, but in the unconditioned reality of that
which before had been real only because it had proved itself prac-
tically valuable. The intrinsic certainty referred to in this state-

258 THE MONIST.

ment of Barker's is the same point we have made regarding all
practical attitudes. Intrinsic certainty is the fundamental charac-
teristic of all practical experience. Abstract the experience from
the situation that caused it to differentiate and these specialised
parts are left as it were in the air. Hence the attention is fixed upon
them and they are held to be valid in themselves. This attitude
is represented in many types of emotional experience. The virtuoso
in the sphere of emotion has abstracted his feelings from the situa-
tions in which they belong, in which they have been in conscious-
ness only as contributing to an end toward which the whole expe-
rience is moving. He has abstracted them, we repeat, and brought
them to the focus of attention, in other words given them a validity
of their own. It seems to me that this procedure is strictly parallel
to the one we have been discussing in the religious sphere.

Barker continues, "Consider the belief in the miraculous birth
of Christ. The absence of any strictly logical relation between the
supernatural event and the religious doctrine which is connected
with it is here more patent than ever. That Christ was born into
the world in a preternatural way is in itself no proof at all that he
was an incarnation of the deity, although, of course, to one already
convinced of his divinity the miraculous birth has a certain fitness
as a symbol." As Barker further points out the symbol has a cer-
tain function, for faith comes in pulsations, that is the practical
situations in which the symbol is significant are not always at hand,
but the attitude of readiness to meet them must be preserved intact
and this is the more possible if the tools of the attitude can continue
to be held in the foreground. The mind is thus kept accessible to
the influences by which faith can be revived. "The Christian whose
faith had grown weak attributed the lack of faith to himself as a
fault, because he did not doubt that the objects of faith were there
to be apprehended, although he could no longer feel their reality
and truth for himself." In other words, we represent the values
of our past experiences by means of the conceptual machinery they
involve, apparently because it can be most easily isolated. The
mental concomitants of a practical attitude can never be isolated
and still be expected to retain their original nature. It may be the

PRAGMATIC INTERPRETATION OF CHRISTIAN DOGMAS. 259

only way we can represent to ourselves that we have had the ex-
perience but we must nevertheless not forget that this conceptual
framework is not the original experience. The only reality the con-
ceptual structure or system of dogmas has, its only validity is, in
pointing to a time when practical situations were very acutely felt.

The significant characteristic of the practical situation is that
it is immediate and its reality needs no logical proof. No theory
of the universe, no philosophy, can disprove this fact of the imme-
diate appeal of the practical crisis, and its total independence of the
necessity of any logical support. As soon as there is felt to be
necessity for proving the attitudes involved, the situation itself has
passed away. The whole force and significance of the concepts and
attitudes depended upon the undisputed presence of the practical
situation. Thus "the supernatural facts embodied in the creed do
not need to be disproved to lose their peculiar value. This value
is already lost when they can be reasonably doubted. Their pecu-
liar function is gone from the moment they appear to be doubtful."6
That they are doubted means that they are isolated from their func-
tional place in experience, that practical needs have changed, and
hence that different systems of concepts are now needed. The only
way to prove any claim of theology is to show its vital relation to
the crises of life. No one was ever convinced of the truths of reli-
gion in any other way, nor has any one who has believed them from
this side lost his faith by mere ratiocination. If such an one has
lost his faith, it has been because its vital contact with his life has
had ceased and the work of reason is simply to show that what is
left was dead. Our point, in a word, is this, that the reality of a
practical situation is recognised immediately, and its tools are in the
same immediate manner regarded as valid solely because of their
functional connection with the situation. There is no other way
to prove their truth and to attempt to do it otherwise is to admit
that they have lost their functional value and hence are false.

It is suggestive to apply this point of view to the doctrine of the
second coming of Christ. There is no question but that the expec-

•Ibid., Barker.

260 THE MONIST.

tation of this had a very important place in the thought of New
Testament times. It is an excellent illustration of the evolution of
a belief according to the theory here presented. The Church of to-
day, obliged to admit that the early Church was mistaken in the
particular form in which it held to this belief, holds it now in a
modified form. But in a sense the early Church was not in error.
This belief in the second coming of Christ was a part of a more
general attitude toward the world and human conduct, and as such
it served to mediate a definite practical attitude which was then
significant. When this appropriate context disappeared the belief
was left stranded and in the eyes of later ages it was manifestly a
mistaken one as far as ontological fulfilment went. But the convic-
tion that it stood for an ontological reality has led each generation
to reconstruct the belief on a basis that at least offered a possibility
of fulfilment. What is true of this particular belief is true of all
others referred to above, except that in this one its falsity when
taken out of its context was so self-evident that it had to be recon-
structed if it were to continue to be believed. Of the other dogmas
it was not so evident that they were meaningless when thus iso-
lated, and hence they were more easily adhered to in unreconstructed
form.

It is likewise as regards the doctrine of inspiration. The in-
dividual who finds in the Scriptures a key that interprets his ethical
life asks for no other proof that they are inspired. But the so-
called logical proofs of inspiration never convince any one because
when such proofs are offered it is evidence that inspiration is now
taken as a fact out of connection with the actual unfolding of ex-
perience. It is notorious that no argument for the inspiration of
the Scriptures, for immortality, or for the divinity of Christ is con-
vincing to any one who does not believe in them already as facts of
immediate experience.

In conclusion we may repeat what was stated at the outset, that
there is a fundamental limitation to all our thinking. This limita-
tion, however, in no wise invalidates it as some have assumed.
There is no better proof of the validity of thinking than that it does
solve the crises that arise within experience, and that experience

PRAGMATIC INTERPRETATION OF CHRISTIAN DOGMAS. 26l

does move on. Thinking is for no other purpose. There is no such
thing as absolute thought, for thought is essentially a process of ab-
straction from an undefined matrix of possible experiences for the
solution of particular crises. It means by its very nature that some
things are slighted and some overemphasised, but it is justifiable
because of the particular tension of the situation that demands solu-
tion. If this is the nature of thought it is manifestly invalid to
hold that the tools that it creates for the solution of this tension are
valid instruments for reality as a whole. That which relieves the
tension is undoubtedly an aspect of reality, but it is true of the whole
only as the whole is in contact with the particular. We have illus-
trated this limitation by the evolution of some of the Christian dog-
mas. The field of religion offers excellent material for such illustra-
tion because its attitude is primarily so immediate and practical, and
because in it more than in any other there has been a tendency to
give the conceptual machinery of this practical attitude an inde-
pendent validity, thus imposing upon one age the tools that were use-
ful only in ages long past. The evil of such a procedure is, of
course, that the new generation mistakes the meaningless intellectual
machinery for the essence of religion itself and is in danger of re-
jecting both together. Respecting this view of truth in its general
significance, the words of Barker are significant. "It will hardly
be disputed that whatever may have been the shortcomings of primi-
tive Christianity, it was sufficient for the needs of the early Chris-
tians."7 This is the most that can be said of any attitude of mind,
of any system of concepts, of any theory of things, and this only can
be said. If we attempt more, we drift into speculations of which
it can only be said, "They may be true, for aught we know, but we
certainly do not know."

IRVING KING.
PRATT INSTITUTE.

7 Ibid.

ON THE NOTION OF ORDER IN THE UNIVERSE.

A TEN have always been struck by the fact of the regularity of
*-*•*- astronomic occurrences, and also, though in less degree, by
the alternation of the seasons on the earth, which depends upon
these celestial movements, by the reproduction of living creatures,
whether vegetable or animal, in conformity to their specific type,
and, finally, by the repetition of a thousand common phenomena
of heat, light, electricity, or affinity under similar or analogous cir-
cumstances.

Through the observation of these phenomena there is intro-
duced to our minds the idea of order, and at first this idea signifies
periodicity, constant recurrence, because of the aspect of phenomena
which impress their first or most obvious mark upon it. But anal-
ysis soon shows that this is only a crude and superficial mark; an
appearance of stability hides from our short sight the incessant
changes of the universe.

Even in the movements of the heavens we discover inequalities
and perturbations. The solar system, to which we belong, is but
a dab of matter wandering among millions of systems which people
space. Imperceptible internal modifications in the course of time
alter the relations of velocity and mass within it so as to disturb
the economy of the whole; nothing recurs constantly in the same
number and form, and we are forced to recognise that the period-
icity of these astronomic movements, regular as they seem to our
brief observation, is only relative and depends probably on wider
systems of periodicity whose rhythms and times we know not,

* Translated from the original manuscript by W. H. Carruth, Univer-
sity of Kansas.

THE NOTION OF ORDER IN THE UNIVERSE. 263

In physical and chemical phenomena, — and in the end every-
thing is reduced to the relations comprised under these two names,
that is, to the laws of the constitution of matter, — things present
themselves to us under this same double aspect; on the one hand,
the constancy of the qualities of matter and the permanence of its
laws; on the other hand, the diversity of circumstances, the ac-
cidental conjunction of the conditions which cause this quality to
manifest itself or that combination to result; here the most rig-
orous determination, by which every fact is what it is; there the
contingent element, that is to say, the seemingly fortuitous concourse
of series of events which might not have come about in this par-
ticular point of space and at this particular moment of time.

The notion of order would be reduced, then, to this: that the
same causes always produce the same results. It would mean the
necessity of the consequences under equality of conditions. But
it would not do to understand this in the narrow sense of periodicity,
as implying the inevitable recurrence of the same conditions, the
recommencement of the same phenomena without assignable or
possible limit.

As far as we can comprehend it, the world seems to us to be
organised for the sake, in a word, of variety, rather than for repe-
tition. The very constancy of the laws permits all the possibilities.
When we consider that every substance has its particular properties
of density, expansibility, radiation, conductivity, etc., and its fixed
equivalent of combination; that for every gas, for instance, there
is a critical temperature, below which this gas resists all pressure,
and then, that at this temperature pressure on the contrary turns it
into a liquid ; if we reflect upon the interdependence of all facts, so
that the very least action is re-echoed throughout the universe,
then we shall comprehend without difficulty that the possibility of
new arrangements in it is indefinite and so enormous as to transcend
all efforts of the imagination.

And yet, science succeeds none the less in its generalisations.
The three domains of light, electricity, and magnetism, which form-
erly were separated, are to-day united. Thermodynamics, limited
at first to the study of the expansion of bodies and to their changes

264 THE MONIST.

of condition, now comprises the theory of thermo-electrical phe-
nomena. Immutability, which was formerly regarded as a mark
of the class of chemical facts, is doubtless so only in appearance,
and the difficulty of finding a mechanical explanation for these facts
is due solely to the extreme complexity of the elements under con-
sideration. Moreover, the essential point for the success of our
theory is that the relations established among objects supposed to
be simple remain the same when their complexity is recognised.1
Thus the great variety of possibilities is not a lack of order,
since human intelligence manages to find its way among them, be-
ing guided by the permanence of elementary qualities and by
certain simple principles, such as that of the conservation of energy
and that of least action. It is not a lack of order, since the success
of our hypothesis depends on their very simplicity. The scientist,
after the manner of the poet, imagines analogies, and only those
are fruitful which enable him to figure out a connection between
series of facts which had appeared to be disconnected.

ii.

The living world presents the same contrast. A miracle, which
is repeated every day, strikes our attention here at once: I refer to
the constant reproduction of beings by generation. In spite of
accidents, this is accomplished with regularity for each species.
From every fertilised egg there comes forth a new animal of com-
plex organism whose acts are spontaneously co-ordinated with ref-
erence to its purpose, which is to live. And the typical form of
each creature is so indelibly fixed in the egg or in the seed, faintly
differentiated as their germs are to our eyes, that it always develops
as the same in its essential characteristics as soon as the favorable
conditions of aeration and temperature coincide.

As a consequence of these very facts, when we consider the
variety of structures of the vast number of creatures and their
succession in time, in which is revealed in the whole the growing
complexity of their mechanisms, the hypothesis is forced upon us

1 Poincare.

THE NOTION OF ORDER IN THE UNIVERSE. 265

that the successive, — if not progressive, — variations of these mech-
anisms could not fail to correspond to mutations in the conditions
of existence. Definite variations, although of limited scope, are
produced under our very eyes : the probable causes of them are
known to us, — modifications of the environment, the struggle of
the organism to adjust itself to new conditions, selection, the in-
heritance of acquired characteristics. It is even possible for us
to add to the work of nature, by making these means serve us in
our own experiences.

Over against a relative constancy, here also appears the acci-
dental, the casual. Whether it be transformation or creation, the
spectacle is the same in both cases. But the intervention of the
casual, that is to say, of the new, of realised possibilities, is subject
here in the living world to the law of constant development com-
prised within the limits of a definite periodicity, which is the life
of the planet itself, whatever be the actions which have supervened
in the course of this development.

Low temperatures, as has become known lately, diminish the re-
sistance of metals to the transmission of electricity in such pro-
portion that an extremely strong current has been successfully made
to pass over a conductor of the smallest diameter, after it had
been cooled by plunging it into liquid air. This fact helps us to
comprehend how, in an egg, a little vesicle of only a few hundredths
of a millimeter in diameter nevertheless contains all the properties
necessary to the development of a living being, and at the same
time holds in concentrated form all the states of being of previous
generations. Furthermore, since such an extremely small quantity
of matter suffices for the development of vital energy, it enables us
to realise what varied aspects life in other planets may present,
what superiority of organism other humanities peopling other worlds
might possess.2

Moreover, is it not a sufficient explanation of such a variety,
that the life of higher organisms results from the harmonious ac-
tivity of hundreds of thousands of living elements, while these ele-

* D' Arsonval.

266 THE MONIST.

ments are in their turn the result of reactions of hundreds of thou-
sands of atoms?

Thus in their realm the domain of the possible is equally un-
limited. At the same time that she is repeating herself, Nature does
not weary of producing anew. A like law of simplicity is found,
as one may well believe, in this diversity. Science succeeds here
also, in guiding herself by a principle which is analogous to the
principles of the least action and the conservation of energy, that
of finality or teleology.

The more one studies at close range the physiological machin-
ery, the more one is struck by the adaptation which exists between
the various organs and their function. From vegetables to animals,
from the humblest creatures to the highest, there are revealed deli-
cate adjustments and proportions which one might consider inten-
tional. Teleology, one may say, is a hypothesis inseparable from the
investigation of life; it is a monster which we exorcise but do not
kill. Science cannot dispense with it, even when she rejects it
under this name ; if she is ignorant of the use of a piece of organ-
ism, she applies herself to discover it; and these precise determina-
tions of vital adaptation constitute physiology itself.

It is doubtless possible to reverse the proposition and say that
the eye was not made to enable the animal to see, but that the
animal sees because eyes came to it. At bottom this is only a child-
ish equivocation, for the miracle then consists in attributing to the
predestined or fortuitous play of physical and chemical laws the
formation of an apparatus so complicated as that of vision, with its
parts so specialised and so precisely adjusted: the transparent and
lenticular media, the retina, the motor muscles, the specialised nerve,
the rods and cones, the sclerotic and choroid membranes. And this
miracle is renewed in constant variety for each of our senses, for
our apparatus of locomotion, for our viscera, up to the ultimate
marvel of the brain, in which is produced the consciousness of self.

No less striking is the picture of the adjustments of life if we
consider the ways of animals, the curious habits of bees, for ex-
ample. They all adapt themselves to one end, which is the success
of the hive and the preservation of the species. They do not repeat

THE NOTION OF ORDER IN THE UNIVERSE. 267

themselves in an automatic way; they vary according to circum-
stances, and their keepers know how to arouse, or to utilise to
their own profit, these intelligent variations of instinct.

It is true that we are dealing here with machines already per-
fected. The aspect of the matter is different if we consider the
phenomena of elementary life. Teleology in cells or plastids seems
reduced to simple reactions. But the sequence of these reactions
in the course of development is none the less worthy of remark.
It will be useless for us to trace back the intelligent act to the in-
stinctive, instinct to the simple reflex, the reflex to the chemical
reaction, and to imagine the successive stages of this astonishing
evolution; we shall not have eliminated for all that the essential
problem of the co-ordination of the reflexes with reference to an
end which is the same in every instance, and whose interpretative
value is never zero or negligeable for the scientist.

In sum, and without wishing to draw any premature inferences
from this principle, it remains true that the biologist in his turn,
in beginning the study of life by studying its elements, takes for
granted the unity of the living world, as does the physicist the
unity of the physical world. Between these two worlds there exists
without doubt a hiatus ; the gulf appears impassable when we con-
sider only the phenomena of the life of higher organisms. It is
less profound when we descend to origins ; science does not despair
of connecting the facts of elementary life with the general prop-
erties of matter, and the success of such an attempt will be the
clearest testimony that can be furnished of order in nature. For
we can suppose and affirm it to exist there definitely only in
proportion as it exists for our minds and is formulated in our
knowledge.

in.

The reactions which constitute the life of a plant, even if they
can be reduced to laws of physics and chemistry, are none the less
a unique phenomenon compared with the simple reactions of in-
organic matter. Still more delicate are the reactions of animate
beings, in proportion as they depart more and more from the type

268 THE MONIST.

of vegetative life: sensibility, consciousness, volition, increase with
complexity of organism and abundance of forms, and here we have
an ultimate transmutation of energy whose scope is assuredly con-
siderable in the economy of the universe.

The results of co-operation, so remarkable even in the com-
munal life of the lower animals, take on their true importance in
communities of human beings. Here we see individuals springing
from one another yet retaining more or less resemblance, in the
same manner as plants and animals. Something, however, changes
in them, their morals or their mentality, and these inward changes
are expressed outwardly by entirely new relations which are made
effective in some other way. The same aim which governs the
animal world has impelled man to his social arrangements, and
this aim is living, the satisfaction of all demands of life. But we
also see how in society he becomes more the master of the conditions
of his existence.

Something of initiative seems, then, to be thereby introduced
into the necessary train of events; a great complexity of facts is
met by an increasing contingency whose maximum is found in the
thought of man ; necessity, if I may say so, is transformed to a
free and reflex action in passing through our consciousness.

One of our most learned philosophers3 recently opposed to
the theory of evolution that of dissolution. He very ingeniously
showed, supporting his argument frequently with strong proofs,
that all things in the psychological and social order as well as in
the mechanical tend toward assimilation, not to differentiation.
The actual course of events in the world would nevertheless be
such that we should still be permitted to predicate an opposite
course. Dissolution and evolution doubtless represent only phases
of a universal rythm whose ultimate reason we do not know, and it
remains admissible to postulate periodicities of immense duration,
into which would fit our phenomenal world, perpetual new begin-
nings offering constantly new combinations regulated by the same
general laws, the same determinism which perpetually governs
other contingencies.
1 M. Andre Lalade.

THE NOTION OF ORDER IN THE UNIVERSE. 269

To resume, the constitution of the world appears to us to be
such that the domain of the possible has no limits there. The
variety of phenomena is so bewildering even to the human mind,
that the success of science in this field has been doubted. It is
undermined on one side even while it is being built up on the other.

In truth, science would be impossible if there were not, in spite
of all, stable relations in nature. It would be impossible, further-
more, if there did not exist a general system, a direction of evolution,
reaching even to communities of human beings, and it is upon the
hypothesis of such an order spontaneously sprung from common
observation, that the knowledge of psychological and social facts
is founded.

IV.

Death is necessary to life. We see creatures, from the least
to the greatest, struggling among themselves for the means of
existence, devouring one another for food, or destroying one an-
other for the sake of gaining more room. The economy of our
world is as hard to comprehend without this law as it would be
without the equilibrium of seasons, winds, and waters. But our
sensibilities revolt at that which our reason explains : and this dis-
agreement enters into our judgments. Justice, goodness, — whence
do we derive these ideas which rise above the mere resistance to
pain? How does it happen that we are constituted so that we op-
pose our ideals to the fatality of things and labor to subdue the
forces that govern us? In whatever way this attempt is inter-
preted, it remains true that man is also a part of nature and that
his reason, weak as it is, can and must have its place therein. The
laws of our sentiments and of our understanding are not our work ;
they constitute a part of the great whole. Our inner logic must
conform to the logic of this universe in order that it should be
depicted thus in our brains. The consciousness of self cannot be
pure accident, the individual a nullity, the intelligence which re-
flects the world a fleeting gleam ; and hence our attention is fixed
upon the vast extent of an horizon which one cannot narrow down
without lessening his own function as a thinking man.

27O THE MONIST.

In the class of physical and chemical phenomena we have seen
only constant and necessary relations: no system seemed invariable
except alternating and compensating destruction and recomposition.

In the phenomena of life we have perceived a law of adapta-
tion: a development, or progressive course, across specific or in-
dividual cycles; the action of an internal finality which groups and
directs for a time the uncertainties of general conditions. But the
purpose is perceived only from without, interpreted with reference
to the needs of the mind which conceives it; and the purely psy-
chological problem of teleology remains to ascertain whether con-
sciousness precedes adaptation, or whether it follows and accom-
panies it.

In the class of social phenomena there appears, over and above
an end perceived and desired and a perceptible order, the con-
sciousness of a plan, the idea of a higher control exceeding the
limitations of simply biological beings. But the conception of such
a plan is founded only upon an analogy between our thoughts and
a thought in the world ; nevertheless it is permissible, since it
is innate, since it is realised in part by our own efforts, and since
we ourselves are comprised in this universe. It is the definition of
the plan, of the desired order, which remains impossible and chimer-
ical, apart from what we conjecture and imagine concerning our
own destiny.

Constant relations, an order, a plan, such, then, would be the
stages of the philosophical hypothesis. We follow them up to the
last, in spite of our reservations, when once we have reached this
critical point where our inductions exceed our data, and the mind
with difficulty resigns itself to not crossing this indeterminate fron-
tier which separates verifiable conjecture from that which cannot
be verified.

LUCIEN ARREAT.
PARIS, FRANCE, 1904.

CHINESE SCRIPT AND THOUGHT.

COMMUNICATION OF THOUGHT.

T N China the most ancient mode of recording thought was accom-
•*• plished by chieh sheng (|g $g) or "knotted cords," which is
alluded to by Lao-Tze in his Tao Teh King, ai&ff,1 (written in
the sixth century before Christ) as the ancient and venerable, though
awkward, mode of writing, and also by Confucius in the third
appendix to the Yih King.2

All detailed knowledge of the use of knotted cords in China
has been entirely lost, but we can easily understand that it was a
mnemo-technic method of remembering data of various kinds and
communicating ideas. The same practice prevailed in ancient Peru
as well as among the islanders of Oceania, and seems to have been
common all over the globe among the peoples of a primitive civili-
sation.

In South America the knotted cords are called "quippu" and
some that are still preserved in ethnological collections were used
to indicate the tribute to be paid to the Incas by the several tribes.
They consist of woolen threads, the different colors of which repre-
sent different kinds of produce : corn, wheat, fruits, furs, etc., while
the number of knots register the amount or measure.3

1 See Lao-Tze 's Tao Teh King, Chapter 80.

3 Section 23. See James Legge's translation in Sacred Books of the East,
Vol. XVI, p. 385-

* What can be done with knotted strings is well illustrated by the fact
that a string alphabet has been invented for the use of the blind in which
the letters are indicated by form or arrangement. The knots are easily made

272 THE MONIST.

Herodotus informs us that King Darius when fighting the
Scythians gave his orders to the lonians in the form of a leathern
thong with sixty knots in it, therehy indicating the number of days
in which they should expect his return. We thus see that the Per-
sians employed the same mnemo-technic means that have been dis-
covered in several South Sea islands as well as in America, and we
may assume that the ancient Chinese knotted cords (chieh sheng)
also were in principle the same.

Knotted cords were replaced by notched bamboo sticks, and the
incised characters may in olden times have been as primitive as are
mnemotechnic communications of the American Indians, such as
prayer-sticks and such other pictorial writings as are still extant.

* * *

The invention of writing in the proper sense of the word is
credited to Ts'ang Hieh (^flU), also called Shih 'Huang ($> Ji),
the "Record Sovereign" because he is the protector and patron
saint of history and archival documents. He is said to have lived
in the twenty-eighth century B. C, and having ascended a mountain
overlooking the river Loh, he saw a divine tortoise rising from the
water. It exhibited on its back mysterious tracings of letters which
"lay bare the permutations of nature to devise a system of written
records,"6 — a report which imputes that he saw the characters of

It is not impossible that Chinese writing has been introduced
from ancient Mesopotamia, a theory vigorously advocated by M.
Terrien de Lacouperie, rejected by many, but, after all, sufficiently
probable to deserve serious consideration, for we cannot deny that
many Chinese symbols exhibit a remarkable similarity to the ideo-
grams of both ancient Babylonia and ancient Egypt, and remember-
ing the fact that Chinese bottles have been discovered in Egyptian
tombs and also in Asia minor, we cannot help granting that in
prehistoric days there must have been more trade, and more travel,
and a greater exchange of thought than is generally assumed.

and sufficiently different to be easily deciphered. The Standard Dictionary,
II, p. 1780, contains an illustration of the string alphabet.

* Myers's Chinese Reader's Manual, p. 228, I, No. 758.
the five elements on the tortoise's back.

CHINESE SCRIPT AND THOUGHT.

273

We here reproduce from Garrick Mallery's work on Picture
Writing of the American Indians,'1 a table of symbols which shows
the cuneiform signs in three forms; pictorial, hieratic, and cursive,
the Chinese and the Egyptian in parallel columns.

PitforiaH,

O

J

=1

*

-Q
_t

ieratic

«$><

inn

*
(ff-

n

I!

Chinese

o

H

W

•Sun*
HaneL

WbocL.
Cave.*

Jfome,

ary
GocL

Ear:
Water.

fforn,.
HaZS.
Door

MALLERY S TABLE.

A Comparison of the Cuneiform, Chinese, and Egyptian Systems of Writing.
The words omitted in the Chinese column of Mr. Mallery's

''Ann. Rep. of the B. of Ethn., 1888-9, P- 675. Mr. Mallery does not
state the source from which it is taken. It may be from W. St. Chad, Bos-
cawen, or M. T. Lacouperie.

274 THE MONIST.

table (God, ear, home) are not less remarkable instances than the
others.

The word "God" is more similar than it appears if we were
to judge merely from its external shape. In cuneiform writing as
well as in Egyptian it is a star, and the Chinese word shih (^)
shows a horizontal dash and underneath three perpendicular wave
lines. This seems very different from the Babylonian and Egyptian
conceptions, but the Chinese character is explained to mean "light
from the sky" or "celestial manifestation," the dash on top meaning
"the heavens," and the three vertical lines depict the emanations in
the form of rays.

The character for "ear," in its present form J$ (V/t), might
very well have originated from the Babylonian. The same is true of
the Chinese character that denotes "field," or "farm land," which
may very well be used in the sense of "homestead." The character
t'ien ( 0 ) is in principle the same as the pictorial Babylonian and
the hieroglyphic Egyptian.

Further, we have to add theat the Chinese word meaning
"corpse" is explained as "body lying" and thus resembles the
Egyptian word for "mummy" which in different senses is repre-
sented either as a standing or a lying mummy.

We have to correct a mistake in Mr. Mallery's table ; the word
"half" in Chinese is not a cross, but either half a tree or the ideo-
gram "cow" combined with the character "division." A cross
means "completion" and the complete number of our fingers, viz.
"ten."

Whether or not the theory of Lacouperie be tenable, one thing
is sure, that all three systems of writing, the Babylonian, the Egyp-
tian, and the Chinese, have begun with pictorial representations of
the objects which, according to circumstances, were conventionalised
in different ways.

The writing material always influences the character of a script.
Thus, after the invention of brush and paper, the method of writing
down from top to bottom was naturally retained, but the script
acquired that peculiar picturesque character of brush dashes which
it still possesses.

CHINESE SCRIPT AND THOUGHT.

275

The hair brush is called mao-pi, or simply pi (bamboo pencil),*
and tradition states that General Meng Tien was the inventor of
writing with a brush, — a statement which is not impossible but

kwei. cbi. tsz', aiang, luh, hn, shan,

PICTORIAL WRITING CONVENTIONALISED.*

muh.

strange, for he was the most faithful servant of Shih Hwang Ti,
the great hater of ancient literature, who on capital punishment
ordered all the ancient books burned. Shih Hwang was a warlike
emperor who ruled from 259 until 210 B. C., and for the first time
(in 222 B. C.) united the entire Chinese empire under one scepter.
He is the same who erected the great wall, so expensive and at the
same time so useless, and General Meng Tien was in command of
the laborers. When the Emperor died, General Meng Tien is said
to have committed suicide.8

We here reproduce a list of ornamental Chinese characters
which are commonly, and without doubt rightly, assumed to repre-
sent the most ancient forms of Chinese writing with a brush.

Boundary (p)

To revolve ([§j)

/**N

\\\

To wrap

Mountain

* Reproduced from Williams's Middle Kingdom.

* The character jg pi consists of the radical "bamboo" and the word
"brush" or "stylus."

8 See Myers, loc. cit., Nos. 597 and 497.

•THE MONIST.

Water

River (J|( )

Rain

Rain (later
character)

Elephant, Idea(^)

M

Island

Wings

Wheel, Carriage (*)

Field (ffl)

Boundary

rr

&

A
R

Grass
Grass

Boy, Child

Constellation
Star (g)

Thread

Thread

(another

form)

Wheat

Tree

Wood

Forest

One-half (half

a tree)(^)

CHINESE SCRIPT AND THOUGHT.

277

Fruit

Q Sun(B)

Moon

Bright (Sun
and Moon)

Bright (Moon
shining in
window)

Evening

;£ Many

Ear

Heart

Flesh

y Mouth (tt)

Teeth

jjj Teeth

(later
form)

t

1
T

Muscle (

Infant, Feeble

Weak (infant

muscle)

Male (muscle working
in field) (U)

Complete, ten (-f-)
Middle (c£)

Above
Below ( T)

Between (|gj)

Divide, (A)
Eight

To cut (#)

278

THE MONIST.

Humaneness

Hatred (Crookedness HA

\T

of heart) (3)

Cow

<ij;-n
(Ma/1 v

Half (Cow divided)

Horns*

n

Justice (my sheep) (||)

Compare

Compare

Invert, change (

Conversion

Looking backward,
To flee before
enemy (North)

Manyf

Beauty (large

sheep) (g)

Multitude

Man

Most of the symbols of the list explain themselves. A "bound-
ary" is a simple line of enclosure. ''Revolve'' is a curve. The mean-
ing of the signs "to wrap," "mountain," "water," "river," "rain,"
"horns," "grass," "child," "constellation" or "star," "thread,"
"wheat," "tree," "fruit," "sun," "moon," is obvious enough. The
symbols "elephant," "bird," "heart" require more imagination ; but

* This character does not exist in modern Chinese.
t Not used in modern Chinese.

CHINESE SCRIPT AND THOUGHT. 279

the original picture is still recognisable in them. The word "flesh"
is meant as a slice of meat. "Mouth," "teeth," "eye," are also in-
tended to depict the objects. The word "muscle" represents the
upper arm, and in connection with the word "weak" which origi-
nally means also "infant," it denotes "lack of strength." A char-
acter consisting of two lines, representing two pieces cut off, means
"to divide." Later the character "knife," as the instrument by
which the division is to be made, was added. Crooked roads mean
"crooked" or "evil," and in combination with the word "heart" we
have the word "hatred." In the symbol "cow" the horns form the
most prominent part, the body being reduced to a mere cross. The
symbol "cow" combined with the symbol "division" means "half."
The picture of a sheep shows the symbol "horns" on the top while
the rest is scarcely recognisable. The symbol "sheep" in combi-
nation with the symbol "mine" represents the character "justice,"
because the ancient Chinese were shepherds, and their main quarrels
in courts of justice were disputes about the ownership of sheep;
and their idea of beauty was expressed by "a sheep" that is "great."
The symbol "middle" is easily understood and so are the symbols
"below" and "above." The character "gate" is a picture of a
double doorway, and the character "between" shows a mark between
the two posts of the gate. The character "sun" or "moon" and a
picture of a "window" means "bright," for if the moon shines into
the window it denotes "brightness," and "sun and moon" in their
combination mean the same, viz., the best light there is in the
world. The ideogram "moon," if written in a special way, is read
''evening," and if "moon" is repeated it means "many evenings,"
or simply "many." The earth is represented by a horizontal line
on which a cross stands, implying that the soil of the earth is
stable; it is the place on which to take a stand. Two trees mean
"wood," three trees "forest." If the tree is cut in two, it originally
denotes "one-half," later on it acquired the meaning "part or par-
cel," and finally "piece."

The outline map of a field means "field" or "farm," and lines
limiting two fields mean "frontier" or "boundary."

If the character "man," of which only the legs are left, has the

28O THE MONIST.

symbol "two" attached to it, it means the relation which obtains
between two or several people, viz., "humanity," "humaneness," or
"kindness." One man or two men turned the other way means "to
compare." A man upside down means "to invert," "to change."
One man in his normal position, and the other upside down ac-
quires the sense of "transformation" or "conversion." One man in
a normal position and another man looking the other way means
"north," for the Chinese determine directions by looking south;
hence, to look backward means "north." The symbol consisting of
three men means "many." To this symbol is frequently attached the
character "eye," and thereby it acquires the meaning "many as a
unit," i. e., "a multitude."

A pretty instance of Chinese word formation is the word shu
(%£), which means "book" or "treatise," and is composed of the
characters "brush" and "speak," the idea being that it is a thing
in which "the brush speaks."

There are several styles of Chinese script (shu), and we here
reproduce from Professor Williams's Middle Kingdom (Vol. II,
p. 594) a table which shows at a glance their similarities and dif-
ferences. The most old-fashioned style is called "the seal script,"
or, after the name of the inventor, Chuen Shu. The second is the
official style, or Lieh Shu, used for engrossing documents and com-
monly considered the most elegant form of writing. The third is
called the pattern or normal style (Kiai Shu) ; because it preserves
most clearly the essential character of Chinese writing. The fourth
is a shorthand and demotic style called cursive script or Hing™ Shu,
much used in practical life. It is the most difficult for foreigners to
read, as many lines are run together, thus obliterating the distinct-
ness of the original character. The fifth style is called the grass
script or Tsao Shu. It is almost an approach to the easy hand of
the Japanese, and its name may be translated "fancy style." Under
the Sung dynasty a new style was adopted which is practically the
same as the normal style, only showing more regularity, and it is

™Hing means "to walk," "to run" ; and as a noun the same character
means "element."

CHINESE SCRIPT AND THOUGHT.

28l

Sung Fancy Cursive Normal Official
style style style style style

H

H

H

¥

f
I

Seal
style

i

5?

f!

B

Q

n

B

fln

Writing
has

styles,

viz.,

seal.

viz.,

official,

viz.,

normal,

viz.,

running or
cursive,

viz.,

grass or

fancy,

Sung.

SIX DIFFERENT STYLES OF CHINESE WRITING.
(Reproduced from Williams's Middle Kingdom.)

282 THE MONIST.

commonly called Sung Shu which has become the pattern of modern
Chinese print.

The writing of Chinese requires eight different kinds of dashes,
and the word yung (jjt), "eternal," contains all of them. This
significant character accordingly has become the typical word with
which Chinese scholars start their calligraphic lessons.

Dot Hori- Perpen- Hook Dash Sweep Spike Curve
zontal dicular

THE ELEMENTS OF CHINESE SCRIPT.

The little mark like a fat upward comma is called dot. Among
the lines we have a horizontal and a perpendicular. Further there
is a hook, which latter is added to the perpendicular by joining to
its lower end a dot line. A dash is a short horizontal line. A taper-
ing line downward is called a sweep, upward a spike, and a smaller
sweep in the shape of a big downward comma, stroke. A crooked
line is called a curve.

STOCK PHRASES AND STAPLE THOUGHTS.

The Chinese are in the habit of propounding their favorite
notions and beliefs in enumerations. They are so accustomed to
the mathematical conception of Yang and Yin that they would
agree with Pythagoras who finds in number the explanation of the
world.

The Chinese speak of the Hang i, i. e., the two primary forms
representing the positive and negative principles. Further they
speak of the two great luminaries, sun and moon ; the two divinities
presiding over war and peace, the two emperors of antiquity, the
two first dynasties, viz., the Hsia and Yin ; and the two venerable
men that hailed the advent of the Chow dynasty, etc.

The number "three" plays an important part in Chinese enume-
rations. There are three systems of religion authorised by the
government: Confucianism, or the system of the Literati (fH ) ; Bud-

CHINESE SCRIPT AND THOUGHT.

283

dhism, or the system of Shakya Muni (SI) ; Taoism or the system
of Lao Tze ( jj|) . There are three kinds of heavenly light : of the
sun, the moon, and the stars. In Chinese ethics there are three
forms of obedience: of a subject toward his sovereign, of the son
toward his father, of a wife toward her husband. There are three
mental qualities (ft) of a student: application (jsB)> memory (f£),
understanding (^|). There are the three gems worshipped by
Buddhists, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. There are

THE THREE GEMS OF BUDDHISM.

iree pure ones or precious ones worshipped in the Taoist temples,

>robably in imitation of the Buddhist trinity. There are three cere-

lonial rituals ; one in worshipping heavenly spirits, another in wor-

lipping spirits of the earth, and the third one in worshipping the

)irits of ancestors. There are three sacrificial animals : the ox, the

joat, the pig. There are three holy men : Yao, Shun, and Yii.

^here are three auspicious constellations: the constellation of hap-

)iness, the constellation of emolument, and the constellation of

284

THE MONIST.

longevity. There are three kinds of abundance that is desirable:
abundance of good fortune, abundance of years, abundance of sons.
There are three powers (= /fr) of nature: heaven (5c), earth (tjlj),
man (A)- There are three regions of existence, the heavens, the
earth and the waters. There are three degrees of kinship. Fur-
ther there are three penal sentences: the death penalty, corporeal
punishment, and imprisonment. There are three tribunals of jus-
tice: the board of punishments, the court of judicature or appellate
court, and the censorate or supreme court. There are three forms
of taxation : land taxation, a service of twenty days labor each year,
and tithes of the produce. There are three great rivers : the Yellow
River, the Loh, 'and the I. There are three great river defiles:
Kwang Tung, the Valley of the Yang Tse Kiang, and the defiles
of the Si Ling on the Yellow River. There are three primordial
sovereigns: Fuh Hi, Shen Niing, and Hwang Ti. In addition
there are innumerable sets of three in the literature of the Confu-
cianists, the Buddhists, the Taoists, and also in history.

The number "four" is not less frequent. We have four quad-
rants and four divisions of the heavens ; the East is the division of
the azure dragon, the North of the somber warrior, the South of
the vermillion bird, and the West of the white tiger. There are
four supernatural creatures considered as endowed with spirituality :
lin (|£) or unicorn, feng (M) or phoenix, kwei (H) or tortoise,
and lung (ft ) or dragon. The scholar possesses four treasures
(58 ) : ink ( H ) , paper ( £g) , brush (H ) , and ink slab (xSi) ." There
are four figures which originate by combining the two primordial
essences in groups of two, the great yang, the small yang, the great
yin and the small yin. There are four cardinal points and four
members of the human frame.

Instances of the number "five" are above all the five blessings
(E H) : longevity (HO, riches (a), peacefulness (Jj|) and seren-
ity ( 3|J ) , the love of virtue ( fa #? $* ) , and a happy consummation
of life (3|- 0 -^). There are five eternal ideals ( &) : humaneness

11 The Chinese have no ink stand but use a slab upon which they rub
their ink, taking it as does a painter from a palette.

CHINESE SCRIPT AND THOUGHT.

285

uprightness (ft), propriety (flf), insight (!?), and faith-
fulness ( -fg) . There are five elements ( 5 If ) : water, fire, wood,
metal, earth. There are five cardinal relations among mankind:
between sovereign and subject (;fj g), between father and son
( 3£ ip. ) , between elder brother and younger brother ( 3j> |£ ) , be-
tween husband and wife (J~ ^), between friend and friend (jpj jg).
There are five genii : of spring, of summer, of mid-year, of autumn,
and of winter. There are five beasts used for offerings : the ox, the
goat, the pig, the dog, the fowl. There are five colors: black, red,
azure, white, yellow. There are five classes of spiritual beings:

f

/^

IS

tt

THE FIVE IDEALS.

THE FIVE BLESSINGS.

ghosts or disembodied human spirits, spiritual men, immortalised
beings living in this world, deified spirits who have departed from
the material world and live in the islands of the blest, and the celes-
tial gods who enjoy perpetual life in heaven, There are five planets :
Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, and Saturn. Further the Buddhists
enumerate five attributes of existence: form, perception, conscious-
ness, action, and knowledge. There are five degrees of feudal rank,
five tastes, five notes of harmony in music, five sacred mountains,
five kinds of charioteering, five colors of clouds, five ancient em-
perors, five imperial courts, five kinds of mourning, etc., etc.

286

THE MONIST.

The characters which stand for the five blessings, and also the
five eternal ideals, are naturally the most popular symbols all over

THE FIVE BATS.
(After a Tibetan picture.)

THE LONGEVITY GARMENT.*

China. They are used for congratulations and are inscribed upon
wall pendants as ornaments. Among them the characters "longev-

* Reproduced from Professor De Groot's Religious Systems of China,
page 60.

CHINESE SCRIPT AND THOUGHT.

287

ity" and "blessing" are most used of all. They appear upon the
decanters of convivial meetings; they are written on the bottom of
tea cups ; they are wrought into artistic forms of furniture ; they

CRANE AND TORTOISE.*
Symbols of long life. (Bronze candlestick.)

ire used for buckles, on pins, on dresses, and as ornaments of every
description.

* The tortoise drags along the moss that has grown on its back.

288

THE MONIST.

. Blessing is called fu in Chinese, which is an exact homophone
of fu meaning "bat," and so the five blessings, wu fu, are frequently
represented by five bats.

The meaning of the symbol "longevity" is not limited to the
secular meaning of long life in this world, but is endowed with

THE LONGEVITY SYMBOL IN DIFFERENT STYLES.

religious signification verging on the idea of immortality among
Western peoples.

Ancient traditions tell us that Si Wang Mu, the Royal Mother
of the West, who lives in the Kwun Lun Mountains, possesses a

CHINESE SCRIPT AND THOUGHT.

peach-tree bearing fruit but once in three thousand years. From the
peaches of this tree the elixir of life can be distilled, and this is the
reason why the peach symbolises longevity. Other symbols of
longevity are the pine-tree, the crane, and the tortoise.*

Of enumerations in sets of six we will only mention the six
accomplishments: intelligence, humanity, holiness, sincerity, mod-
eration (keeping the middle path), and benignity; further the six

THE CHARACTER &t ON CUFF BUTTON.

LONGEVITY PIN.

forms of writing: the seal character, the ancient official style, the
normal style, the cursive style, the grass style, and the printer's
style.

There are fewer enumerations of seven than might be ex-
pected. We mention the seven sages in the bamboo grove, the seven
precious things (Sapta Ratna) of the Buddhists, the seven primary

* For special reference see De Groot's Religious Systems of China, pp.
56-57-

20X>

THE MONIST.

notes of music, the seven stars of Ursa Major commonly called "the
dipper," the seven apertures of the head: ears, eyes, nostrils, and

LONGEVITY DECANTER.

CANDELABRUM WITH LONGEVITY
AND "HAPPINESS" SYMBOLS.

LONGEVITY
CHOPSTICK HOLDER.

mouth; the seven luminaries: sun, moon, and the five planets; the
seven emotions: joy, anger, grief, fear, love, hatred, desire.

CHINESE SCRIPT AND THOUGHT. 2gi

The most important set of eight is the eight kwa or trigrams.

The figure "nine" is represented as the nine heavens, situated,
one in the center, and the eight remaining ones in the eight divi-
sions of the compass. There are further nine degrees of official
rank, and nine divisions of the Great Plan, an ancient Chinese state
document.

There are ten canonical books : the Book of Changes, the Book
of History, the Book of Odes, the Record of Rites, the Ritual of the
Chow Dynasty, the Decorum Ritual, the Annals of Confucius, the
Three Commentaries, the Conversations of Confucius (Lun Yii),

BUCKLE WITH CHARACTERS LONGEVITY AND BLESSING.

and the Book of Filial Piety. There are ten commandments and ten
heinous offences.

Of twelve we have the twelve animals of the duodenary cycle
called rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, serpent, horse, goat, monkey,
cock, dog, and pig. They preside, each one over a special hour of
the day and the night and are supposed to exercise an influence
peculiar to the character of the several animals. There are further
twelve months, corresponding to the twelve divisions of the ecliptic,
and the Buddhists speak of the twelve Nidanas or links in the chain
of causation.

THE MONIST.

The figure "twenty-eight" is important as the number of day
of a lunar month. Accordingly, the heavens are divided into twenty
eight constellations or stellar mansions, and it is noteworthy tha
four days in the twenty-eight, corresponding to the Christian Sun
day, have been signified as resting-days and are denoted by th
character mi ($j 0) which has been traced to the Persian Mithra
and proves that, in remote antiquity, Mithraism must have exercisec
an influence upon Chinese habits.12

NORMAL STYLE.

GRASS STYLE. A NEW YEAR?S CARD.*

THE CHARACTER "BLESSING."

These enumerations are not accidental and indifferent notions,
but form the staple thoughts of Chinese ethics. They have beconn
fundamental principles of Chinese morality and constitute the back
bone of the convictions of everv half-way educated inhabitant o

12 See Mr. A. Wylie's article on the subject in the Chinese Recorder
Foo Chow, June and July numbers, 1871.

* The deity Wen Ch'ang points upward, indicating that all blessings
come from heaven.

CHINESE SCRIPT AND THOUGHT. 293

China. Whatever their station in life may be, all Chinese people
know these ideas, they bear them in mind and allow their lives to
be determined by the conception of the five eternal ideals, the five
virtues, the five blessings, etc. They recognise in nature the funda-
mental contrast of Yang and Yin as having originated from the
great origin and believe that the moral world of social conditions

CHINESE SAUCER WITH PHOENIX AND DRAGON.
The centre contains the character fu "blessing."

is governed by the same law. Their highest ambition is to fulfil
all the demands of hsiao, i. e., "filial piety." Scholarship is highly
respected, and even the lower classes are punctilious in the obser-
vance of all rules of propriety.

EDITOR.

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS.

SUBSTITUTION IN LOGIC.

To the Editor of The Monist.

In the Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods (Vol.
I, p. 541) Professor James, the eminent Harvard psychologist, makes the fol-
lowing positive assertion:

"In Taine's brilliant book on 'Intelligence,' substitution was for the first
time named as a cardinal logical function, though of course the facts had al-
ways been familiar enough."

Now I should like to put this question to your readers : Are not the
statements contained in the following sentences what may fairly be called
"the naming of substitution as a cardinal logical function"?

"Every conclusion may be regarded as a statement substituted for either
of its premises, the substitution being justified by the other premises. Nothing
is relevant to the other premises except what is requisite to justify this sub-
stitution. Every substitution of one proposition for another must consist in
the substitution of term for term. Such substitution can be justified only so
far as the first term represents what is represented by the second."

These sentences occur in a pamphlet entitled Three Papers on Logis, by
C. S. Peirce, which was, as I am informed, widely distributed in the summer
of 1867. The same papers were also printed early in 1868 in Vol. VII of the
Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, pp. 250 to 298,
as having been presented to that society in March, April, and May, 1867.
Taine's work De Intelligence is dated, in its preface, December, 1869.

Since Ockham, Hobbes, and Leibnitz, who all regarded mind from the
same general standpoint as Taine, like him, spoke of thoughts as signs sub-
stituted for things and for other signs, the question as to whether or not
any great step in logic was made in thus regarding substitution as the "car-
dinal function," is one of too large a scope to be here entered upon ; but I
subjoin a few more sentences from the papers referred to to show that the
conception was not left undeveloped by Mr. Peirce.

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS. 295

"The objects of the understanding, considered as representations, are
symbols, that is, signs that are at least potentially general. But the rules of
logic hold good of any symbols, of those that are written or spoken, as well
as of those that are thought."

"Symbols which directly determine only their imputed qualities are but
sums of marks, or terms;

"Symbols which further independently determine their objects by means
of other term or terms, and thus, expressing their own objective validity, be-
come capable of truth or falsehood, are propositions;

"Symbols which still further independently determine their interpretants,
and thus the minds to which they appeal, by premising a proposition or
propositions which such a mind is to admit, are arguments."

Mr. Peirce seems to have regarded it as essential to an argument that
it should appeal to the interpreting mind to judge of it independently. Thus,
he says, "an argument will here denote a body of premises considered as
such," for it must distinctly show what the interpretation of the premises
is expected to be, yet, in so far as the argument is a rational appeal, the con-
clusion which embodies this interpretation is not put as an assertion, but is
only formulated and submitted to the interpreting mind to judge.

Mr. Peirce has always been careful to exclude from logic, matter that
he considers psychological, and therefore it is not surprising that he did not
explain to what mind the appeal of the argument is addressed when one
reasons with oneself. But it would seem to be plain from the above extracts,
and is rendered perfectly clear in the papers referred to, that he not only
considered all logical thought as an operation upon symbols consisting in
substitution, but that he undertook to demonstrate this and to show how the
same is true.

I may add that Peirce does not in the papers referred to say that sub-
stitution, which he makes the one hinge of all reasoning, is an indecomposable
operation, and that in Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology,
Article "Symbolic Logic," he shows that no operation of substitution is
valid unless the operations of insertion and subsequent omission into which
it can be resolved are both valid.

FRANCIS C. RUSSELL.

THE PLACE OF MATHEMATICS IN EDUCATION.

The present rector of the University of Munich, Professor Ferdinand
-indemann, has devoted his official rectorate lecture to the important subject
>f the significance of mathematics in the higher schools. At present the cur-
riculum of the German gymnasia is based upon the principle that education
insists first of all in a knowledge of classical philology and history. Pro-

296 THE MONIST.

fessor Lindemann is fully convinced that a knowledge of Greek thought is
indispensable for any educated man. But we must not forget that the lead-
ing philosopher of ancient Greece wrote over his school the significant words

and Melanchthon quotes this famous maxim of Plato in his preface to the
Latin edition of Euclid (Basel, 1537). How different is the classical con-
ception from the modern treatment which mathematics receives ! It is now
considered dry, monotonous and tedious, and the mathematician is generally
eschewed, being stigmatised by the saying, mathematicus non est collega, "the
mathematician is unsocial."

In order to point out the value of carefully elaborated mathematical
exercises, Professor Lindemann quotes Helmholtz as saying, "In my judg-
ment, a true comprehension of mathematics is attained by working out
mathematical propositions on paper and accurately revising each statement
that is given. When one simply thinks out something in his mind, there is
always a possibility of error, of disregarding some important term which he
will never notice until he writes it down. I consider this most excellent
practice in order to arrive at really clear logical thought, and to understand
mathematics. For if students do not work out their mathematics and write
it down they will never positively understand it."

How little consideration is given mathematics among leading experts on
ancient and classical times, appears from Mommsen's famous dictum to which
he gave utterance in his speech before the Royal Academy of Sciences, Berlin,
in 1884. "We shall, furthermore, continue to call the ideal culture of man-
kind in good Latin, humanity ; and the man who would in time replace Homer
by the doctrines of conic sections, in good Greek, banausic." In answer,
Professor Lindemann says, "Mommsen misunderstands the facts. We agree
with him perfectly that Greek reflection and Roman thought continue to
sway even to-day, consciously and unconsciously, our humanistic culture, and
we too designate the ideal of human civilisation as humanism, but this ideal
comprehends not only the development of art, politics, literature and history,
but of the exact sciences as well. The innumerable theorems of conic sections
certainly consitute mathematics as little as the recitation of Homeric songs
can pass for classical scholarship. But if elements of the theory of conic
sections have lately been introduced into the program of our higher schools,
this step has an ulterior purpose. The treatment of conic sections in meth-
ods of analytical geometry familiarises the student with an instance of the
general laws of interdependence ; it is the general idea of functions as here
introduced in geometrical form, which has directed and controlled the devel-
opment of mathematics during these latter centuries, and upon which rest the
great discoveries of Newton and Leibnitz.

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS. 2Q7

Professor Lindemann further calls attention to the application of mathe-
matics in technical occupations and sciences, especially in astronomy, physics,
and of late even in chemistry. He points out that the only road to success
in the sciences in modern times passes through the gate of higher mathe-
matics, and mentions in connection therewith such names as Kepler, Newton,
Comte, Mayer, Helmholtz, Clifford, Hertz, Mach, Pearson, Poincare, and
Herbart.

Wilamovitz has made progress in his method of teaching the classics by
introducing bits of Euclid in his textbooks ; but, argues Professor Lindemann,
will a classical philologist be able to explain the subject-matter of the
seemingly most simple statements of mathematics referring to definitions,
axioms, etc.? Do the philologists have an idea of the vast literature which
of late has grown out of the discussion of these simple propositions, since
Bolyai, Lobatchevsky, and Gauss? There are quite a number of mathematical
textbooks which still retain the false ground that it is possible to improve
upon Euclid, and in spite of the discussions and lectures held at almost every
University on the subject, they continue to offer definitions and even demon-
strations which long since have been shown to be insufficient.

Professor Lindemann declares that mathematical instruction in gymnasia,
corresponding in America to undergraduate courses in college and university,
should not cover all the details of mathematical branches, but should be so
arranged as to enable the student to gain a proper comprehension of the
grand edifice of mathematics and its solid foundation. Teachers of mathe-
matics should be equipped to satisfy these conditions and should be familiar
with the methods by which the science of mathematics has been worked out.
They should know its history, not only in general, but some of its main prob-
lems ; for instance, how mankind happened to be interested in the trisection
of the angle and the squaring of the circle. He should have a command of the
basic ideas of analytic mechanics ; should at least have become acquainted
with the exact execution of certain experiments, such as the motion of the
pendulum ; and should also have clear ideas concerning the field of applied
mathematics and its significance in practical life. It is these aims that the
leading mathematicians have had in mind since the beginning of the last
century.

THE SLAV INVASION.

MR. FRANK JULIAN WARNE's VIEW OF THE SITUATION.

While other nations are waging wars, causing loss of life, property,
and money, the United States is passing through industrial struggles which
are not less expensive. The anthracite strike commission estimated the loss
of the last strike at one hundred million dollars. Mr. Frank Julian Warne,

2Q8 THE MONIST.

Ph. D., who is correspondent for the Philadelphia Ledger and contributor to
The Outlook, and who was in the Pennsylvania coal fields in 1900 and 1902,
has published his views of this great struggle, and it may be surprising to
many that he regards the industrial phase of the strike as a mere incident
and insists that it is above all a struggle between the Slavs and the Saxons.
He has published his views in a book entitled The Slav Invasion and the Mine
Workers, a Study in Immigration, (J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.
$1.00 net,) and suggests at the end of the book the advisability of the amend-
ment of our immigration laws. His view may be onesided but it contains
much valuable information, presented by an impartial observer. It is char-
acterised in the Preface as follows :

"This book shows how the competition of the so-called Slav races, in-
cluding the Italian, for the places in and about the hard-coal mines of the
English-speaking mine-workers — the Irish, English, Welsh, Germans, Scotch,
etc. — has resulted in a conflict between these two distinct groups for in-
dustrial supremacy in hard-coal mining, and how this is forcing the English-
speaking nationalities out of this industry and out of that section. The
strikes of 1900 and 1902 were mere surface indications of the wide-spread in-
dustrial unrest which naturally accompanies this struggle; they should be
regarded as mere episodes in this great conflict of races."

Mr. Warne has great faith in the United Mine Workers of America, and
he believes that though the Union may pass away, it has accomplished a
work that otherwise might have seriously endangered the healthy develop-
ment of the nation. The United States has shown an enormous power of
assimilation, but the Slavs are so different from the Teutons, who really
give character to our nation, that the usual methods proved insufficient. Mr.
Warne says:

"The power of assimilation in Northeastern Pennsylvania is being weak-
ened by the heavy task thrust upon it, and unless aid comes from other
sources it may be questioned whether American ideals and institutions are
to be equal to the work of making the Slav immigrant into an American citi-
zen. The one bright ray of hope lighting up the uncertain future is shed from
the activity in the coal-fields of the United Mine Workers of America. With
this organisation, to a much greater degree than most of us realise, rests the
solution of many of the problems presented in the hard-coal producing com-
munities. Its power of uniting the mine-workers of all nationalities and
creeds and tongues — of bringing together the Slav and the English-speaking
employees on the common ground of industrial self-interest — has only recently
been demonstrated. Through this it is breaking down the strong racial ties
which until its entrance into the region kept the two groups apart. In brief,
this organisation is socialising the heterogeneous mass."

There are three causes which have primarily contributed to the ultimate

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS. 2Q9

failure of the trades union movement in the anthracite coal region. Thev
are: (i) the inability to control all the workers in the three several fields;
(2) the railway ownership of the mines ; and (3) the "Molly Maguires."

The first two causes are sufficiently well known and stand in need of no
further comment. The "Molly Maguires" were a secret oath-bound organi-
sation which flourished in the regions from 1866 to 1876. Their history is
described by Mr. Warne as follows :

"The 'Molly Maguires' were principally Irish immigrants, who brought
the society with them from Ireland, where it had been formed as the An-
cient Order of Hibernians, under Robert Emmet, for the purpose of freeing
their native land from the British control. None but Catholics were eligible
to membership, and, despite the opposition of the Catholic Church and its
priests in the anthracite region, the society continued in existence nearly ten
years with the worst possible elements opposed to law and order in control.
Its secret meetings, which planned murder and incendiarism, were conducted
with solemn religious rites, and its vengeance seemed to be directed mainly
against mine superintendents and bosses. A number of murders of such
officials was traced to the society, but in every case alibis would be sworn to
in the trial by other members of the society, and convictions were rare. So
daring did they become, and so atrocious were the crimes committed, that
detectives were employed to ferret out the criminals. One of these was John
McParlan, an Irishman and a Catholic, who in 1873 succeeded in becoming
a member of the society under the name of James McKenna. He played his
part so well that he continued a member for three years before his real pur-
pose was discovered and he was forced to flee. He had gained the confidence
of the leaders, however, and had become secretary of the Shenandoah branch
of the society. The evidence of the operations of the society he was thus
able to furnish, led to the arrest of seventy members. With his mass of un-
disputed testimony, and through some of the prisoners turning State's evi-
dence, twelve members of the society were convicted of murder in the first
degree, four of murder in the second degree, four of being accessory to
murder, and six of perjury."

Mr. Warne fully appreciates the work of the United Mine Workers of
America in breaking down the inherited sources of separation and binding
the heretofore antagonistic groups and races into a new relation:

"The racial and religious and social forces which heretofore tended
to divide the mine-workers into innumerable groups antagonistic one to the
other are being bridged over by the much more powerful force of industrial
self-interest."

Mr. Warne describes the meeting which was called by President Roose-
velt on October i, 1902, in which the miners were represented as well as the
operators. While Mr. Mitchell disclaimed the responsibility for the terrible

300 THE MONIST.

state of affairs and suggested that the questions in dispute between the mine-
workers and the operators be submitted to a tribunal to be appointed by the
President of the United States, Mr. Baer accused the unions of interference
with their competitors, the "scab" element. He said :

"There are from fifteen to twenty thousand men at work mining and
preparing coal. They are abused, assaulted, injured, and maltreated by the
United Mine Workers. They can only work under the protection of armed
guards. Thousands of other workmen are deterred from working by the
intimidation, violence, and crimes inaugurated by the United Mine Workers,
over whom John Mitchell, whom you invited to meet you, is chief. I need
not picture the daily crimes committed by the members of this organisation."

In Mr. Warne's opinion the danger of further trouble will continue so
long as the Slavic immigration is not stopped. At present, however, immi-
gration continues, and the Slav element is increasing rapidly.

"In politics the Slavs are already a facto'r that must be reckoned with.
They are becoming naturalised in an ever-increasing number. In Schuylkill
County they are rushing into the naturalisation courts at the rate of sixty a
month."

Yet, while Mr. Warne points out the danger and the trouble which is still
in sight, he is not blind to the fact that the final solution of the problem must
come through the education of the Slavs, for he says :

"Yesterday the Slav was a pauper immigrant; to-day he is what the
English, Welsh, Irish, and German miner was a quarter of a century ago —
on the way to becoming an American citizen. What sort of a citizen he may
be will depend upon the influences that are brought to bear upon him. It
is too early to judge him finally; certainly he should not be judged too harshly,
especially as he has shown himself adaptable. But we may not blink the fact
that the Slav offers at present a problem of much complexity and danger."

"All children of Slav parentage — and the Slav races are very prolific —
do not attend the parochial schools. Many of them are in regular attendance
at the public schools, and in general they are diligent and painstaking stu-
dents. Invariably one hears good reports of them from teachers and super-
intendents— in fact, not a few public school teachers report the Slav children
to be more proficient and in many ways more progressive in their studies
than children of the English-speaking races. Under the public school system
many of the Slav children are being trained into good American citizens.
This educational force is, perhaps, the one bright promise lighting up the
uncertain future."

BOOK REVIEWS.

VORTRAGE UBER DIE DESZEDENZTHEORiE. Gehalten an der Universitat zu Frei-
burg im Breisgau von August Weismann. Zweite, verbesserte Auflage
2 Vols. in i. Jena: Gustav Fischer. 1904. Pp. xiii, 340; v, 344.

Professor Weismann's Theory of Descent, which is a carefully revised
report of lectures actually delivered at the University of Freiburg i. B., is
intended by its distinguished author to be a resume of his life's work, and
we are glad to notice that within a short time it has already reached the
second edition. He calls it his Hauptergebnisse, the chief results of his
labors, and it constitutes a condensed statement of his theory on heredity.

Professor Weismann was one of the first among the naturalists of Ger-
many to indorse Darwin's views, for which he made a strong plea in his
inaugural address in 1867; but he thought at the time that Darwin's theories
could be enlarged and deepened, and so he worked out his own theory of
selection, in which he insisted on the significance of the selection that takes
place in the domain of germs. He may be accused of exaggerating the im-
portance of this principle, and of one-sidedness in deriving from it all his
explanations. But, he answers, one might as well accuse physicists of one-
sidedness when they claim that the law of gravitation is possessed of uni-
versality. He says :

"In this application of the principle of selection to all stages of living
units, lies the nucleus of my views. To this thought all these lectures lead,
and I am convinced that it constitutes the import of this book. It will last
even if everything else in the work should prove temporary." In another place
he says: "In spite of many contradictions, I take the fundamental ideas of
my views to be right, and among them are the propositions of the existence
of the determining units of life called determinants, and their combination
into ids. Upon the doctrine of determinants rests the theory of germinal
selection; and, according to my conviction, without this, the great thought
as to the guidance of the transformation process of the forms of life through
selection, by discarding the unfit and by favoring the better adapted, will
remain a mere torso, a tree without roots."

3O2 THE MONIST.

Whatever may be just in the objection of exaggeration and one-sidedness
that is made to Professor Weismann's theory of germinal selection, even
his adversaries must admit that he has done good work, and that his investi-
gations have contributed considerably to the progress of our comprehension
of the theory of evolution. If we consider all the replies that have been
made to Weismann, and if we consider, too, the innumerable new facts brought
to light in controversy, partly by himself and partly by his adversaries in
their anxiety to refute him, we may fairly say, even from the standpoint of
his severest opponents, that the impulse which he has given to science is
invaluable.

Within the last two decades biological science has penetrated more deeply
into the mysteries of life than ever before, and at this period, Weismann has
been the moving spirit, eliciting new data and utilising everything to its best
advantage. Naegeli proposed his theory of the idioplasm — that substance
which determines the form of a being. Professor Weismann developed this
idea by entering into details and showing that such idioplasms should not be
sought (as Naegeli wanted) in the body of the whole cell, but in the nucleus
which contained all the determinants for the structure of the organism,
called by Weismann Anlagesubstans, a word which has caused translators
much trouble, and which we will briefly define as the substance which con-
tains a disposition of the organism. Every cell contains its idioplasm which
was discovered in a colorable substance, whence the terms chromatin and
chromosome. Professor Weismann calls the idioplasm of the germ cell, germ
plasm, and any complex of germ plasm which forms a biological unit he
calls an "id." Further, chromosomes that contain several ids he calls
"idants," the existence of which, although invisible on account of the small-
ness of the germs, Professor Weismann deems established on account of
his observations of the salamander.

From Professor Roux's investigations in regard to the struggle of the
parts, we became familiar with the existence of the germ plasm, which is,
as it were, a special substance of heredity. Roux discovered it in the chromo-
some and traced its continuity through generations. We know now the
potential immortality which single cells and germ cells possess in contrast to
all higher forms of life. We have observed the mitotic division of the nu-
cleus and the actions of the centersphere which constitutes that marvelous
organ of division of the cell and allows us to look deeper into the unfathom-
able mystery of the minute and complicated details in the structure of living
cells.

How much more advanced are our views now as to fecundation and the
details of that two-fold process, propagation and amphimixis ; that is, the
mixture which takes place in the fusion of male and female germs. Further,
we have new facts as to the phenomena of growth and the significant reduc-

BOOK REVIEWS. 303

tion of heredity, units of which according to Professor Weismann lead to
an abandonment of Lamarck's principle of selection and point out that ulti-
mately selection is a selection of germs.

Although the present work is a defence of Professor Weismann's theory
of germinal selection, the nineteen lectures which it contains are by no means
polemical. He has avoided all personal expostulations with his adversaries,
and has limited himself to plain objective statements of differences. He has
not burdened his book with all details of biological facts, because he in-
tended it to be a book to be read, and not an encyclopedia for reference. In
spite of his modest intentions, however, the work possesses the stately size
of 684 pages, with numerable illustrations in the text, besides colored tables
in the Appendix. It is not Weismannism, but an exposition of the theory of
descent, which presents each link of the argument in a complete yet popular
form from the standpoint of Weismann, who feels confident that if we have
to explain the teleology of nature without falling back upon the assumption
of teleological forces, his method is the only way to success.

P. c.

ADOLESCENCE: ITS PSYCHOLOGY AND ITS RELATIONS TO PHYSIOLOGY/ ANTHRO-
POLOGY, SOCIOLOGY, SEX, CRIME, RELIGION, AND EDUCATION. By G. Stan-
ley Hall. New York: Appleton & Co. 1904. 2 Vols. Pp. xx, 589,
784.

Dr. G. Stanley Hall, the President of Clark University, is rightly deemed
one of the foremost authorities on psychology, and the present work in two
stately octavo volumes deals with the practical problems of adolescence in
its varsious aspects, always keeping in mind the need of the teacher, the edu-
cator, and also the parent. It is scarcely possible to exhaust this important
book in one review, and we do not mean to attempt it here. We venture
only to characterise its contents and thus allow our reader to form a judge-
ment of his own. In one passage of the preface the author says:

"The book attempts a pretty full survey of pedagogic matter and method
for the age treated, and also, to some extent, for earlier and later years. To
motor education, grouped under four great divisions, and will-training, one
of the longest chapters (III) is devoted. The last part of Chapter XV and
Chapter XVI treats of the pedagogy of the English literature and language,
history, drawing, normal and high schools, colleges and universities, and phi-
losophy, and Chapter XII is devoted to that of nature and the sciences most
commonly taught. Menstruation and the education of girls occupies two
chapters (VII and XVII), hygiene, crime, and secret vice one each (IV, V,
VI), social and religious training have each a chapter (XV and XIV, respect-
ively), and the education of the heart is described not only in XI, but in
XV, XII, and elsewhere."

304 THE MONIST.

The psychology underlying Hall's investigations will be treated in a
forthcoming work which we may expect to be as thorough as his Adolescence,
in Chapter X of which, however, he offers a statement of his psychological
views. He takes decided stand against those psychologists of both the past
and present time whose interest in man's fate after death almost obliterates
the interest in man's soul in the past. In fact this is the main burden of
Dr. Hall's message to the psychological world, that the genesis of the soul
can teach us more than the vague speculations as to its ultimate destiny, and
so he insists that his book "embodies a new idea of profound scientific and
practical importance."

Dr. Hall's description of the nature of the soul is as follows:
"The psyche is a quantum and direction of vital energy, the processes of
which most need exploration and description, ordering and directing. By
looking inward, we see for the most part only the topmost twigs of the
buried tree of mind. The real ego is a spark struck off from the central
source of all being, freighted with meanings that, could we interpret them,
would give us the salient facts of its development history. Its essence is
its processes of becoming. It is not a fixed, abiding thing, but grew out of
antecedent soul states as different from its present forms as protoplasm is
from the mature body. It tends to vary constantly and to depart indefinitely
from what it is at any given moment."

"The soul is a product of heredity. As such, it has been hammered,
molded, shocked, and worked by the stern law of labor and suffering into
its present crude form. It is covered with scars and wounds not yet healed.
It is still in the rough, and patchworky, full of contradictions, although the
most marvelous of all the products of nature. Where most educated and
polished externally, it still has inner veins where barbaric and animal im-
pulses are felt. Every individual soul is marked by limitations, defects, and
arrests, often beside traits of marvelous beauty and virtue. None are com-
plete, perfect, typical. Collective soul, however, is a sensorium of wondrous
subtlety that reflects in its multipersonal facets most, perhaps all, that has
been in the world."

As to the underlying philosophy of his methods, he says :
"It may be roughly characterised as in some sense a new and higher
monism and an evolutionism more evolved, with a method which has already
yielded some promising results hitherto unattained and a program of far
more work yet to be done, which is little in harmony with the complacent
sense of finality and completeness so often manifest. From this standpoint
it becomes plain how gross have been the errors in both conceiving and prac-
tically training the soul, which are due to the inexpugnable and all-dominant
interest in its future state and the insistent and, to our thinking, not only
unscientific but almost abnormal aversion to consider its past. This geneto-

BOOK REVIEWS. 305

phobia pervades, consciously or often unconsciously, much of the best ancient
and contemporary philosophical and theological thought, and is one of the
greatest and most inveterate obstacles to a truly scientific psychology. The
problem of the nature of the soul has also rarely, save in forms of material-
ism now generally discarded, been separated from that of a future life, has
led to a horror of materialism that is almost misophobia, and has betrayed
many able professors to take an attitude toward genetic psychology like that
of Agassiz toward evolution."

It is interesting to read Dr. Hall's views on Christianity in its relation
to psychology:

"Christianity has shown little interest in the past of the soul, save for that
of its founder and in order to account for sin. Its emphasis on personal im-
mortality gave the soul immense and unprecedented dignity, but focused
attention and endeavor upon its future. Even the traducianism of Tertullian,
who taught that the soul was in some sense hereditary and had a somatic
continuity with previous generations back to Adam, found little vogue, help-
ful as it was in explaining the mystery of transmitted sin and guilt, and was
twice condemned as a heresy, although Luther seems to have held it. Some
form of creationism, or the view that at a certain age of the embryo a newly
and miraculously made soul joined the body ab extra, has been the prevailing
one. The soul of the natural man is tainted, corrupt, and children depraved
perhaps totally at birth, and the supreme work of life is to save it from
eternal woe."

"The ethical value of the idea of a future life of rewards and punish-
ments has, of course, been incalculable. If it has brought in cosmo-heteron-
ymous motives of morality unknown to the Stoics and disallowed by Kant;
if it has sometimes engendered a transcendental selfishness that may become
gross, and in neurotic ages, races, or persons, favored fears and anxieties
that were hysterical ; if formal, external, and even mechanical ways and means
of salvation have often been relied on — all these things concern us here only
as products and illustrations of the evils of a too exclusive interest in the
soul's future, which is, in fact, still unknowable save to faith, and of ex-
cessive neglect of its past, which is really now increasingly accessible and
which is proverbially the best means of judging of its future."

Psychologists know Dr. Hall as a strictly scientific and conservative man,
and so it will be interesting to learn his views on the New Thought move-
ment and all that is concerned with it. Here is a passage both of apprecia-
tion and criticism of the significance of the Society for Psychical Research,
and it will be noticed that the professors alluded to are portrayed so minutely
that no one can be in doubt about their identity:

"One striking example of the havoc which this lust to pierce the secrets
of the future makes with science is seen in the English Psychic Research

306 THE MONIST.

Society. It has collected masses of precious and hitherto neglected border-
land phenomena between waking and sleep, sanity and insanity, on trancoidal
states, automatisms of body and mind, illusions, hypnotism, etc. But almost
the sole interest of this large and cultured society in these data is what con-
tribution they make to what its able leader calls the most insistent question
of the human heart, If a man die, shall he live again? Is there a land of
disembodied spirits, and can communication be established and demonstrated
between them and us? Possession, apparitions, phantoms of the dead, mes-
sages from the ghost world, or transcendental as well as mundane telepathy,
and in general an inductive demonstration of a survival of the soul after
death, are thus the themes or conclusions, directly or indirectly, inspiring all
this work. Now the folly and pathos of all this is that every fact and group
of facts relied on point for their explanation directly and only to the past of
the individual or the race and not to the future, to the ab- and sub- and not
to the super-normal, or perhaps to the body even more than to the spirit.
Greatly indebted as our guild is for facts, suggestive apercus, and new in-
terests to these students, their service is, as I have elsewhere tried to point
out in some detail, not unlike that of the alchemists who sought the elixir
of life for chemistry, of astrologists in quest of the influence of the stars on
human life for astronomy, and just as the desire to locate heaven and faith
in planetary influences and modes of attaining physical immortality had to
be cast out of these fields before science could really do its great work in
them, so similar purgation must be made here.

"How profoundly contemporary psychologists and philosophers of the
highest academic rank, even those who shrink from all such extreme con-
clusions, are influenced by this bias, consciously or unconsciously, in the
deeper motivations of their work, its direction, methods, and conclusions,
we see on every hand. One professor of great learning and acumen has
been apparently almost unpivoted by the prolonged and acute study of the
revelations of a noted trance medium, which he is convinced are from rela-
tives in the spirit world. Another profound and acute leader of American
metaphysical thought attains as his consummate conclusion the conviction of
an eternal world of many monadic minds or selves, in a republic or city of
God, the free members of which control the natural world and are the sources
of all its law. The supreme fact in his world is 'the eternal reality of the
individual.' Creation itself is not an event, but a symbol, and these personal
spirits never fully and completely enter the real world, for they are out of
time and of the chain of causality. Another of no less power and eminence
makes the goal of philosophy the demonstration of an individuality deeper,
more permanent, and real than that of persons as they appear to us, because
knowledge and love are stronger than life, and so, if our nature is not a lie,
the actuality of our dead friends transcends sense. Such instances might be

BOOK REVIEWS. 307

multiplied. The great majority of people, expert as well as lay, think and
speak of soul in the future tense, and to very few does the word suggest any
connotation with the past. Ask the very man on the street what he thinks of
the soul, and he assumes that you speak of another life or of preparation
for it."

THE SOCIALIZATION OF HUMANITY. A System of Monistic Philosophy. By
Charles Kendall Franklin. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company,
1904. Pp. x, 481.

Mr. Franklin says in the Preface :

"The object of this investigation is to trace physical, organic, and social
phenomena to their sources in order to discover their laws, so that the sub-
sequent expenditure of energy in nature, life, mind, and society may be de-
termined for human welfare. It will necessitate reviewing all of the great con-
cepts of the race, matter, motion, life, mind, and society, — and will result in
an attempt at a complete orientation of the race and the establishment of the
principles which will lead to the democratisation and socialisation of human-
ity. The magnitude of the undertaking need not deter us, for it is by at-
tempting the impossible that we accomplish what we are capable of."

The author attaches great significance to what naturalists would call
uniformity, as it appears first of all in the phenomena of chemistry. He
says:

"The spectrum analysis shows that all identical substances, not only here
on earth, but in the heavenly bodies throughout the visible universe, are
identical in composition. The law of definite proportions in chemistry shows
that all identical chemical compounds are the same in composition. When-
ever a substance is produced, it is but a repetition of all other substances
of a like kind. Wherever a chemical compound is reproduced, it is a repe-
tition of all identical compounds, but owing to external energies being differ-
ent there are some slight variations."

While in plant life and in the animal kingdom the variations are greater
than in the domain of chemistry, still we find there too the selfsame law of
repetition which does seem to dominate all nature. Bearing in mind this
law of repetition, Mr. Franklin discusses the origin of life; the physics of
the senses and the intellect; the chemistry of the senses, the emotions and
the will; animal mechanics; realism and idealism; naturalism versus super-
naturalism, and the expenditure of energy controlled by mind. In Chapters
19 and 20 our author forestalls criticisms that might be made to his system,
and in Chapter 21 offers his applications and conclusions.

His monism is expressed on page 237 in these words:

"All nature is one. We can interpret all nature in terms of our life,
and our life in terms of nature; thus we are akin to everything and every-

308 THE MONIST.

thing is akin to us. This is monism. And nature, including everything, is
due to the unversal process of the eternal adjustment and readjustment of
the radiant and gravitant energies constituting the universe."

The most important application of his system lies in the domain of social
ethics. Mr. Franklin says :

"At vast intervals of time in the history of the race there have occurred
great epochs of improvement in civilisation with prophecies of a perfect exist-
ence yet to come. In the East, Brahminism was followed by Buddhism with
a promise of Nirvana; in the West, Judaism was followed by Christianity
with a promise of heaven. It is this perfect existence, dreamed of by the
race since its beginning, the socialisation of man, that we enter upon to-day.
And the step we take, whether it be large or small, is left to the world to
judge."

DIE LEBENSWUNDER. Gemeinverstandliche Studien iiber biologische Philo-
sophic. Erganzungsband zu dem Buche iiber die Weltrathsel. By
Ernst Haeckel, Professor in the University of Jena. Stuttgart : Alfred
Kroner. 1904. Pp. xii, 567. Price, 9 marks.

THE WONDERS OF LIFE. A Popular Study of Biological Philosophy. Supple-
mentary Volume to "The Riddle of the Universe." By Ernst Haeckel.
Translated by Joseph McCabe. London: Watts & Co. 1904. Pp. xiv,
501. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1905. Pp-48s. Price $1.50 net.
Our indefatigable Haeckel has published another book of 567 pages de-
voted to the fascinating subject of the miracle of life. Professor Haeckel
had declared that his Riddle of the Universe should be his last writing, but
having inquiries concerning many statements made in it, he feels that an an-
swer is due his many admirers as to his position concerning the one and only
miracle of this world, to the solution of which the science of biology is de-
voted. The biological studies of the present volume are intended as a popular
treatment of the subject, and they make a fascinating writing indeed. They
are treated in six parts and twenty chapters which, after the laudable prac-
tice of our ingenious author, are preceded by brief summaries so as to en-
able any one of his readers to look up those points in which he would be
specially interested. The book abounds in tables and is supplied with a good
index. The author would gladly have added illustrations which in some
parts will be sadly missed by many readers, but he did not yield to the temp-
tation of satisfying this natural craving, for fear that the book would become
too expensive and be beyond the reach of the large masses for whose in-
formation it is intended. In every line of the book we feel the joy of work
which has animated the strenuous Professor in all his literary labors, and it
seems that even his adversaries will find it both profitable and pleasant read-
ing.

BOOK REVIEWS. 309

Haeckel is so popular that Watts & Co., the English publishers of his
Riddle of the Universe and The Evolution of Life have engaged Mr. Joseph
McCabe to translate this new work under the title, The Wonders of Life; a
Popular Study of Biological Philosophy. The book forms a stately volume
of 500 pages and the translation is well done.

The American edition is published by Harper. I

EUCLID'S PARALLEL POSTULATE: Its Nature, Validity, and Place in Geometrical
Systems. By John William Withers. Chicago : The Open Court Pub-
lishing Company. 1905. Pp. vi, 192.

Mr. Withers, Principal of the Yeatman High School of St. Louis, Mo.,
has taken his Doctor's degree on the thesis "Euclid's Parallel Postulate,"
and its significance for other systems of hyperspace than is known to us in
our tri-dimensional world. The book is scholarly and the arguments are sober.
Dr. Withers begins with an historical exposition of his problem, relating
the difficulties discovered in the parallel postulate and the several methods
of disposing of it, one main result being the discovery and development of
non-Euclidean systems. He explains the nature of the problem and its
philosophical bearings. He then discusses the psychology of the parallel
postulate, comparing it to its kindred conceptions. Finally he treats of its
validity which is not a priori necessary, but most convenient. He says :

"The world, as our actual experience reveals it, is certainly tri-dimen-
sional; judged by the same standard, it is also Euclidean. If, then, only one
variety of tri-dimensional space is possible, if non-Euclidean tri-dimensional
geometry really demands a fourth dimension, the so-called non-Euclidean
spaces are in reality not spaces at all, for they are not self-dependent total-
ities. It is not, then, a question as to whether non-Euclidean geometries are
possible, but a question as to whether non-Euclidean tri-dimensional spaces
are possible. It is, of course, possible to construct such geometries by making
use of the idea of a fourth dimension, just as we ordinarily build up our
plane geometry by frequently referring to figures which are only possible
in a third dimension; but this, of course, is very different from establishing
the possibility of non-Euclidean tri-dimensional spaces.

"The question, then, simply reduces to this : Are tri-dimensional space-
worlds rationally possible whose internal relations considered as totalities
are essentially different from each other? And it is answered by showing
that the geometries of such spaces can be constructed without appealing to
a fourth dimension. This can be done. As in the case of two-dimensional
spaces, we have here also all the conditions necessary to render such geom-
etries possible. Indeed, the most interesting and significant feature of non-
Euclidean solid geometries lies in the fact that they are just as independent
of a fourth dimension as is Euclid itself. There are, to be sure, certain facts

3IO THE MONIST.

in all these geometries that make us wish sometimes for a fourth dimension
and the power of moving into it, but they do not necessarily imply this dimen-
sion. The simple principle of congruence fails, for example, if we attempt to
apply it directly in proving the equality of two Euclidean pyramids whose
corresponding parts are mutually equal but arranged in reverse order. The
analogous theorem in plane geometry is proved by obverting one of the
triangles in the third dimension. Were there a fourth dimension and had
we the power of moving into it, it is conceivable that this might also be
done for the pyramids. What would happen is simply this : By obverting one
of the pyramids in the fourth dimension and then returning it to its own
tri -dimensional world, its relations to the other objects of this world are
changed in a way that is wholly impossible so long as we confine it to three
dimensions. But the internal relations of the pyramid itself, as in the ob-
served case of the triangle, remain entirely unaltered. The self-identity of
the figure is retained. But as we have said, these facts cannot be regarded as
implying the logical dependence of Euclid, or of non-Euclid, upon a fourth
dimension."

The author sums up his inferences as to the nature of space by recog-
nising that only pure logic is strictly a priori, while geometry with its space-
conception contains an element of experience the actuality of which can only
be proved empirically. We sum up the situation in his own words:

"The only a priori manifold at present definable in Kant's sense of a
priori seems to be a manifold constituted by a totality of logical classes or
distinctions of any similar sort. The constitution of such a complete system
of logical entities must be implicitly known to any rational being

"The connection between this a priori logical manifold and the empirical
space of our own experience lies in the fact that the space-aspect of experience
is the one which most definitely implies and is implied by our power to co-
ordinate our activities so that "a leads to b leads to c," etc. It is that aspect
which enables us to introduce illative relations among acts and systems of
acts of our own (acts actual and acts possible).

"That this aspect of experience exists is an empirical fact. What cor-
relations of acts it permits and how it permits them are also empirical. All
the details are empirical. But if it is to permit such a system at all, it has
to conform to the general type of the illative relation and its parts viewed
as coexistent must be related to each other in accordance with the general
type of an illative relation."

THE FOURTH DIMENSION. By C. Howard Hinton. London: Swan Sonnen-

schein & Co. 1904. Pp. vi, 247.

Mr. Howard Hinton, already well known from the publication of his
Scientific Romances, ably written rambles into the domains of metageometry

BOOK REVIEWS. 311

and other spheres of the super-sensible world, presents us now with his
theory of the fourth dimension that to him is a well-founded fact, to the
explanation and evidence of which he has dedicated the whole of this small
volume. His procedure may be briefly characterised as forming a systematic
conception of four-dimensional space, and then pointing out how a three-
dimensional system ought to act if it were a part of a higher or four-dimen-
sional one. Mr. Hinton shows that in investigating the real universe when
descending into the finer subdivisions, we come to forms of matter possessing
properties different from those of larger masses ; and analogous conditions
prevail when we take into consideration cosmic relations such as the paral-
laxes of stars, where the combined angles of triangles cease to measure
exactly 180 degrees. Unfortunately the argument is not conclusive in the
opinion of those who are not willing to be carried away by mysticism. But
even those antagonistic to a belief in the objective actuality of metageometry
will find Mr. Hinton's presentation of the subject refreshing and ingenious.
How much room a romance of science can find in the mysterious realm of
the fourth dimension !

TUTONISH. A Teutonic International Language. By Elias Molee, Ph. B.
Published by the author. Tacoma, Wash. 1904. Pp. 96. Price, $0.40.

Among the enthusiasts who propose the creation of a new language,
Elias Molee of Tacoma, Wash., takes an intermediate course by offering not
a universal language, but a speech that should be acceptable to the Germanic
race. Living in a community which is mostly made up of Teutonic people,
he tried to establish a tongue that could serve as a means of communication
between the English, the Germans, the Swedes, the Norwegians, the Danes,
the Dutch, and the Icelanders. He calls this new language "Tutonish" and
trusts that it will prove superior to the English. It is constructed after the
analogy, of German and English and retains much of the grammar common
to all Teutonic languages. As an instance may serve the Lord's Prayer which
in Tutonish reads as follows:

"vio fadr hu bi in hevn; holirn (hallowed) bi dauo (thy) nam; dauo
reik (kingdom) kom; dauo vil bi dun an erd, as it bi in hevn; giv vi dis
dag vio dagli bred, and fergiv vi vio shuld (debt), as vi fergiv vio shulders
(debtors), and lied vi not into fersieku (temptation), but befrie vi from ievl,
fyr dauo bi du reik, du makt (power) and du herlinu (glory) fyr ever —
amen. (from mataeus 6, 9-13.)"

Matthew ii. in Tutonish begins as follows :

"nau ven jesus bin birtn in bethlehem ov judea in di dags ov herod, do
king, sie, dar komen veis mans from du ost tu Jerusalem, sagend, ver bi
hi hu bi birtn king ov di judars? fyr vi hav sien hio star in du ost, and hav
komen tu anbied hi."

312 THE MONIST.

We doubt very much whether his proposition will ever be introduced
anywhere in the United States, let alone in any European country. Those
who know both English and German will acquire Tutonish easily, but they
will probably prefer the use of English.

M. Couturat who has distinguished himself in behalf of the establishment
of an international auxiliary language, discusses, in a recent letter addressed
to the inventor of Tutonish, the proposals of M. Elias Molee from his stand-
point as a believer in Esperanto.

M. Couturat considers that the project of Mr. Molee does not fall within
the scope of his Commission and feels consequently that he cannot take it
into account in the final edition of his History of the Universal Language.
In fact, M. Couturat wishes to see one single language, while Mr. Molee's
scheme is intended for Germanic peoples alone. Mr. Molee would doubtless
say that the Romance and Slavic nations might in their turn adopt inter-
Romance and inter-Slavonic languages. But this would make two or three
international languages instead of one, which would very much diminish
their utility, to such an extent that no one would wish to adopt them. The
objection is already made to the partisans of a single international language
that this would be one moie language to learn. What then would be said
if there were three to be learned?

But Mr. Molee doubtless hopes that the pan-Germanic language would
in time supplant the others, or even prevent their ever coming into existence
And Mr. Molee puts forward in support of this hypothesis, arguments of
political and patriotic nature which seem calculated to convince his com-
patriots, but which for this very reason can only arouse invincible opposition
in other nations. He forgets that such considerations, if they prevailed in
every country, would make any international language impossible. M. Cou-
turat appeals to the agreement and concurrence of all the peoples of civilised
Europe, while Mr. Molee, as M. Couturat thinks, appeals, on the contrary,
to their feelings of rivalry, if not of hostility, and conceives of a linguistic
union only between peoples of the same race. M. Couturat believes that
Mr. Molee greatly exaggerates the importance of race-feeling among modern
civilised nations, which, he thinks, are quite cosmopolitan in this respect; and
that, moreover, unity of race does not necessarily entail unity of language
and vice versa. Have not the English a language which Max Muller classed
among the Romance languages? And furthermore, diversity of race does
not prevent community of language: the United States are a good example
of this. Neither does it prevent community of civilisation: as instance, the
Hungarians and the Finns. On the other hand, community of race does not
imply community of interests and consequent sympathy, for the English, the
Germans, and the Americans are commercially bitter rivals. And it may be
remarked in passing that this rivalry would make the adoption among them

BOOK REVIEWS. 313

of a single Teutonic language more difficult than that of a neutral tongue
such as is advocated by M. Couturat, not to mention the natural and invin-
cible hostility which the former would meet on the part of all non-Germanic
nations. All this proves that it is unwise to introduce into the question
political and racial considerations which have in fact nothing to do with it
and which can only render impossible any solution whatever.

To sum up, Mr. Molee's project tends, in M. Couturat's opinion, to
divide nations and make their natural opposition more profound and in-
vincible, while his own tends to unite them and draw them together upon
an equal footing, and consequently to develop a feeling of common interest
and fraternity. The union which he dreams of is not one of races, whose
mutual opposition is, indeed, much less than that of nations; it is a union of
all civilised mankind without distinction of race or religion, of weakness or
strength.

LECTURES ON NEUROLOGY AND NEURIATRY, PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY.
After the Methods of the Class-Room, to the Author's Students, and
Designed also for General Practitioners of Medicine and Surgery. By
C. H. Hughes, M. D. Edited by Prof. Marc Ray Hughes, M. D., Barnes
Medical College, St. Louis. St. Louis: Hughes & Co., 1902. Pp. 417.
Price, $3.00.

This book on Neurology allows us an insight into the work of Prof. C. H.
Hughes, President of the Faculty of Neurology and Psychiatry of Barnes
Medical College, former Major and Surgeon-in-Chief of Schofield and of
McDowell's College Military Hospitals, also Superintendent of the Missouri
State Insane Hospital.

Being overworked in his profession, Dr. Hughes has found no time to
edit the book himself, but left the work to his son and assistant, Prof. Marc
Ray Hughes of the Barnes Medical College. The contents, beginning with
Chapter I on page 12, form a connected course of lectures on neurology and
kindred subjects: I, Definitions of Terms; II, Neurones and Nerve Cells,
their Composition and Characteristics; III, Neurones and Nerve Centers,
Neurone Theories, Association Neurones, etc. ; IV, Efferent Prolongations,
Histological Composition of Nerve Centers, etc. ; V, Polar and Apolar, Bi-
Polar and Multi-Polar Neurones; VI, Neurones Grouped into Layers and
Brain Cortex; VII, Head Heat in Brain Disease; VIII, Temperature Sense,
etc. ; IX and X, Extra-Neural and Adneural Nervous Disease ; XI, XII, and

XIII, Instruments and Procedures of Precision in Diagnosis and Practice;

XIV, XV, XVI, and XVII, Ascending and Descending Degeneration, Wal-
ler's Law and Its Diagnostic Significance, the Reaction of Degeneration and
How to Discover It; XVIII, the Evolution of Neuraxis; XIX, and XX, the
Evolution of the Brain and Spinal Cord; XXI, Electricity and Electrical

THE MONIST.

Appliances; XXIII, the Dura and the Sinuses; XXIV, Cerebral Embolism,
Hemorrhages and Thrombosis; XXV and XXVI, the Spinal Cord and its
Morbid States; XXVII, Sensory-Motor System; XXVIII, Cerebro-Spinal
Axis; XXIX, the Neuraxis Diagnostically Viewed; XXX, Outline of Cere-
bral and Spinal Nerves and Their Relation to Nervous Diseases; XXXI,
Virile Reflex and Its Symptomatic Value in Practice; XXXII, Aphasia
Defined and Recorded; XXXIII and XXXIV, the Medico-Legal Aspect
Illustrated in the Case of William T. Bevin; XXXV, Neural and Psycho-
Neural Aspects of Surgical Practice; XXXVI, Nutrition and Conservation
of Neurones.

The book is illustrated with the same diagrams which are used in lec-
ture rooms, and the style is rather that of the speaker in the amphitheater
than the author confined in his study. We have obviously to deal with a man
who is at home in his specialty but who cares little for literary finish or the
external appearance of his book. The typography is imperfect, and the
proof-reader did not attend to his work properly. Letters are broken off and
Greek words are repeatedly misspelled. We notice for instance "struments"
for "instruments" (page 117) and "thenos" for "sthenos" (strength) (pages
13-14). The man who made the makeup began both the Introduction and the
first chapter on the left-hand page of the book.

The book will be useful to the students of Professor Hughes and other
neurologists who have acquired sufficient knowledge to overlook the short-
comings of the book which are mostly of an external nature. It would be
highly desirable that the book should be republished by some medical pub-
lishing house which could properly attend to its makeup.

EMPIRICAL ESSAYS. By the Author of Unthinkables. Edinburgh: George
A. Morton. 1904. Pp. 187.

The anonymous author of this book apparently belongs to theosophical
circles that shake off the crudities of its common beliefs and try to work
out a higher world-conception in the direction of the New Thought movement.
His essays are on four subjects.

The first one is entitled "Rome, Jerusalem and an Ideal," and in it he
comes to the conclusion that we need no capital city of our faith; that the
only metropolis required for a religion which believes in the fatherhood of
God, the words of Jesus, an unworldly life, the service of God, etc., would
be the "City of Mansoul."

The second article on "The Ten Commandments" is characterised by
the following conclusion :

"It stands to reason that a Code given thousands of years ago to a
barbarous nation, a Code which condemns image-worship, but has no word
of reprobation for drunkenness, lying, or impurity as such, is inadequade

BOOK REVIEWS. 315

and unsuitable to the moral requirements of a civilised English community
at the present day. And its place should be taken by the Eight Beatitudes,
supplemented by the Two Commandments which received the sanction of
Christ, and the Golden Rule. All the rest, as Hillel said, is but commentary."

The third article, entitled "Karma and Reincarnation," insists on the
fact that early Christianity must have accepted the doctrine of reincarnation,
for Christ declares that Elijah had appeared in John the Baptist, and the
gnostic book Pistis Sophia shows that this was the current belief among the
early Christians. The fourth essay on the "Higher Agnosticism" tries to sup-
plant the common negativism among liberal circles by a better, truer, and
more thoughtful view.

As to theosophy, to which our author devotes considerable attention in
the third essay, he sums up his views in the question, "What, then, shall our
attitude be towards theosophy as a whole?" and its answer:

"Beyond all doubt, ninety-nine intelligent persons out of a hundred
would be inclined to condemn the entire system offhand, one part of it having

been seen to be so palpably at variance with the laws of evidence But,

let us in fairness ask ourselves, is it necessary to reject every theory of the
system called Theosophy because of a few foolish statements made in con-
nection with one particular aspect of it? In all seriousness, I do not think
it is. We do not treat other systems with such rigor, be they philosophical
or religious. No one thinks it incumbent on him to repudiate Christianity
as a tissue of delusion and imposture because many of the doctrines put
forward in its name are an outrage upon common sense."

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HOBBES, IN EXTRACTS AND NOTES COLLATED FROM His
WRITINGS. Selected and arranged by Frederick J. S. Woodbridge.
Pp. xxxvi, 391. Minneapolis : The H. W. Meson Co., 1903.
This volume of extracts from the writings of Hobbes is to be welcomed
as an incentive to the direct study of a master both of thought and of style.
It includes Chapters 1-6 of the "Elements of Philosophy Concerning Body"
and Chapters 1-18, 31, and 43 of the "Leviathan"; and it adds to these, as
supplements or as footnotes, most of chapter 25 ("Of Sense and Animal
Motion") of "Concerning Body"; Chapter 2 of "Human Nature," Chapters
1-3 of "Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society"; and
a series of extracts formulating Hobbes's doctrine of causation from Chap-
ters 9, 10, and 26 of "Concerning Body" ; besides many shorter extracts
mainly from the works already named.

The re-publication of the first part of "Concerning Body" is of real
significance, for these chapters constitute a vigorous contribution to the
doctrine of scientific and logical method, and they are not otherwise acces-
sible except in the many-volumed Molesworth edition of Hobbes. The re-

THE MONIST.

maining selections offer an admirable outline of the ethical and political
philosophy of Hobbes, as this is based on his psychology. Such an outline
well represents the teaching by which Hobbes is best known. Yet the writer
of this notice questions the wisdom of precisely these selections from the
works of Hobbes. Most of the chapters from "Leviathan," which make up
the greater part of the book, are accessible not only in inexpensive editions
of the "Leviathan" itself, but also in Sneath's Selections from the ethics of
Hobbes. Furthermore, the book hardly makes good the promise of the
preface, "to present practically all that Hobbes has contributed to the main
questions of philosophy and psychology." So far as psychology is concerned,
this introductory statement is indeed justified. But the book does not in-
clude, except by incidental statement, the characterisic contribution of
Hobbes to metaphysics : his teaching that every reality — God and human
spirit no less than physical phenomenon — is through and through material.
The materialism of Hobbe.s was, it is true, so bitterly opposed both by his
contemporaries and by his immediate successors, that it was never seriously
studied and so failed of exerting due influence on the course of philosophical
thought. But this constitutes the greater reason for presenting in systematic
form Hobbes's metaphysical teaching about the nature and the manifestations
of body. This would be accomplished by a volume including the greater
portion of Part II. of the "Elements of Philosophy Concerning Body" ; and
such a book is unquestionably needed by students of the history of philosophy.

The present volume is heartily to be commended for its lack of the usual
critical apparatus. Dr. Woodbridge reprints Aubrey's quaint "Life of Mr.
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesburie," but he omits the ordinary "critical intro-
duction" for the sound reason that, if read first it will "make an immediate
and uncolored impression by the author impossible." In place of introduc-
tion and notes. Dr. Woodbridge offers, as has been indicated, an admirable
selection of parallel passages from the different works of Hobbes himself,
explaining and amplifying one text by another in a scholarly and illuminating
fashion. MARY WHITON CALKINS.

WELLESLEY COLLEGE.

FROM EPICURUS TO CHRIST. A Study in the Principles of Personality. By
William De Witt Hyde, President of Bowdoin College. New York:
The Macmillan Company. London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd. 1904.
Pp. viii, 185. Price, $1.50.

The Author, William De Witt Hyde, has given much thought to the
philosophical problem, and he treats it from the standpoint of modern Prot-
estant Christianity. To him personality is the secret of human life. Still
there are some of the higher elements of personality, represented in philo-
sophical principles which rise above the threshold of consciousness and are

BOOK REVIEWS. 317

reducible to scientific analysis. Of these principles the author selects five:
"The Epicurean pursuit of pleasure, genial but ungenerous; the Stoic law of
self-control, strenuous but forbidding; the Platonic plan of subordination,
sublime but ascetic; the Aristotelian sense of proportion, practical but un-
inspiring; and the Christian Spirit of love, broadest and deepest of them all."

The author's main aim is to prove that though all of them possess a
grain of truth, the four first are insufficient and find their fulfilment only
in the fifth, in the Christian spirit of love.

Our author's plan is to proceed by quotations and then add his own ex-
planations. The best portions of the book are Chapters I and II, in which
he does justice to the Epicurean and Stoic principles, analysing them and
subjecting them to a fair criticism. Parts III and IV show less mastery of
the subject, for there are some passages in Plato's writings which ought to
have been quoted, and thus the nobility of the Platonic conception and also
its great affinity to Christianity does not become sufficiently apparent. The
fifth part is not so much an explanation of the Christian spirit based upon
quotations of New Testament sayings, but may be characterised as a sermon
in which the crown of perfection is offered to Christianity. The author's
Christianity, however, is neither the Christianity of the primitive Church,
nor of the Middle Ages, nor even the Protestantism of the Reformers, but
the modernised Christianity which is imbued with the spirit of syncretism,
a Christianity that would be rejected by the Christians of by-gone ages.
The author concludes his work with the following sentences :

"The omission of any truth for which the other ancient systems stood
mutilates and impoverishes the Christian view of life. Ascetic Puritanism,
for instance, is Christianity minus the truth taught by Epicurus. Sentimental
liberalism is Christianity without the Stoic note. Dogmatic orthodoxy is
Christianity sadly in need of Plato's search-light of sincerity. Sacerdotal
ecclesiasticism is Christianity that has lost the Aristotelian disinterestedness
of devotion to intellectual and social ends higher and wider than its own
institutional aggrandisement.

"The time is ripe for a Christianity which shall have room for all the
innocent joys of sense and flesh, of mind and heart, which Epicurus taught
us to prize aright; yet shall have the Stoic strength to make whatever sacri-
:e of them the universal good requires; which shall purge the heart of
pride and pretence by questionings of motive as searching as those of Plato;
and at the same time shall hold life to as strict accountability for practical
usefulness and social progress as Aristotle's doctrines of the end and the
mean require. It is by some such world-wide, historical approach, and the
inclusion of whatever elements of truth and worth other systems have
separately emphasised, that we shall reach a Christianity that is really
catholic."

THE MONIST.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE TEXT OF THE BOOK OF HOSEA. By William Rainey
Harper. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1905. Pp. 51. Price,
$1.00.

We have scarcely finished reviewing Dr. Harper's Religion and the Higher
Life, when a new publication of his comes to our desk. In the meantime the
strenuous President of the University of Chicago has been affected by a
serious disease which has brought him to the verge of the grave, and we
could not but feel the deepest regret and sorrow, if his useful career should
come to a premature end. He is at present taking a much needed rest, while
his friends hope for the best.

The publication before us is the revised Hebrew text and a new trans-
lation of the book of Hosea. It is in a handy form for any one who wants
to see at a glance the meaning of a verse side by side with the original, and
especially whether it is part of the prophet's own writing, or a later addition
or a gloss. For further explanations as to the reasons of these discriminations
the learned author refers us to his essay on "Amos and Hosea," published
in the International Critical Commentary, 1905. The translation follows
closely the Hebrew edition, and so Dr. Harper says that it is "sometimes
more Hebraic than English." For the purpose which this version serves, it
is certainly most appropriate and will unquestionably be appreciated by He-
brew scholars. p. c.

DESCARTES, DIRECTEUR SPIRITUEL. Correspondence avec la Princesse Palatine
et la Reine Christine de Suede. Portraits, dessjns et autographes. By
Victor de Swarle. Preface de M. Emile Boutroux de 1'Institut. Paris :
Felix Alcan, editeur. 1904.

Two royal ladies of good education played an important part in the life
of Descartes. In the year 1862 Count Foucher de Careil published an edition
de luxe, under the title Descartes et la Princesse Palatine, oii de finnuence
du cartesianisme sur les femmcs au dix-septieme siecle. The correspondence
of Elisabeth was discovered in 1879 at Arnheim and appeared under the
title Descartes, la Princesse Palatine et la Reine Christine. The present
author has utilised these works and has rummaged the libraries and archives
of France and Germany to fill out all their gaps, and with the assistance of
Messrs. Boutroux and Darboux, he publishes the present collection of the
literary correspondence of these two princesses with the great philosopher.
The book affords a real insight into the influence of two noble women upon
a great man and is as such a contribution not only to the history of philoso-
phy but as it were of the civilisatory influences which are at work in shaping
our great men. Descartes's correspondence acquires an additional interest
through the dreadful fate of Elizabeth, the wife of the Prince-Elector of
Palatine, who was elected king of Bohemia and lost crown and throne in

BOOK REVIEWS. 319

the battle of the White Mountain near Prague. It was the first stroke of the
Catholic powers in Germany to reassert themselves and set a limit to the
expanse of the Reformation which ushered in the Thirty Years War so disas-
trous to Germany. The fate of Christine was happier. She was certainly
the equal of Elizabeth in intellectual accomplishments. The book is well
written, contains good portraits of Descartes, Elizabeth, and Christine, and
also a facsimile autograph of Elizabeth, and a reproduction of an old en-
graving of the city of Herford.

NOTES SUR L'HISTOIRE GENERALE DES SCIENCES. By Louis Favre, Directeur de
la "Bibliotheque des Methodes dans les Sciences experimentales."
Paris: Librairie C. Reinwald. Schleicher Freres & Cie., Editeurs.
1904.

This little book which bears the modest title Notes on the General His-
tory of the Sciences is a useful manual which will familiarise students with
the aim, the general plan, and methods of the sciences. The several chapters
of it treat the following subjects: What is and what is not, doubt and belief,
construction of materials and facts, analysis and synthesis, encyclopaedic
knowledge, the unity of nature and the unity of science, imagination and
science, anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism, method, revolutions of
method, the true and the useful, medicine and agriculture, impossibilities,
paradoxes, progress, the domain of science, contradictions and reconcilia-
tions, conditions of scientific progress, useful errors, classical errors, exag-
gerations, nothing new under the sun, science is social work. In conclusion,
our author discusses how to build up and how to teach, and what ought to
be accomplished.

HAUPTPROBLEME DER ETHIK. Sieben Vortrage von Prof. Paul Hensel. Leip-

sic: B. G. Teubner. 1903.

Dr. Paul Hensel, a professor of ethics at Erlangen, had been invited to
lecture on the main problems of ethics at Mannheim, and having offered in
concise outline to his public the main problems of ethics, he here publishes
them, making them accessible to a larger public. He sketches and criticises:
(i) utilitarianism; (2) evolutionism; and (3) the ethics of conviction, which
represents his own views. He declares that in order to perform a truly
moral act one must presuppose an unfailing norm of judgment which can be
found only in a dutiful conviction. This, then, is the basis, and the only basis,
of true morality, and here our author finds himself in close touch with Kant,
but endeavors to go beyond Kant in giving the abstract notion of Kant's
categorical imperative a definite content, and thus the purely formal ought
becomes an ought of a definite conscience, based upon a narrower or larger
experience, or a more or less correct judgment. He who looks upon man

32O THE MONIST.

only as an object of science, he who can judge of him under no other view
point than the law of cause and effect, is unable to understand that man is
a moral being. We must first come into possession of a system of valuation
which will help us to judge of reality and to determine man's mode of action.
From the standpoint of moral valuation man appears to himself as the pro-
duct of the entire past. Thousands of years, to speak with Carlyle, have con-
tributed to his birth, and other thousands of years wait what he will do in
his life for their realisation. When thus conceding the enormous importance
of our own life, our ethics will lead up to a religious thought, it teaches us
that it is no accident that our life falls exactly in the present time, and that
we are here to solve its problems. In order to act morally and to make the
claim to be judged as a moral man, we need above all the consciousness of
duty and the intention to act accordingly. It is not a theological morality
which constitutes ethics, but a moral theology will be the necessary completion
of our world conception. Any one who has not this faith in a higher power
and who does not place his life's work into its service cannot accomplish his
labors with the same moral earnestness as he who possesses such a faith.

••'• O;u .'•• [> '}•. .;'i///;.;'i.

INTEROGATIVE THOUGHT AND THE MEANS OF ITS EXPRESSION. By Edward T.
Owen, Ph. D., Professor of the French Language and Literature in
the University of Wisconsin. Reprinted from the Transactions of the
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, Vol. XIV.
This book belongs to the class of logical investigations which attempt to
classify our methods of thinking, and Professor Owen has devoted his special
attention to the element belief or disbelief which is the missing element in
the interrogative. The treatise discusses words as idea symbols, sentences
as thought symbols, and enters into the different analyses of thought. The
second chapter is devoted to judgments, — the ordinary, the imperative, and
the interrogative judgment. The writer leads to a determination of the
missing element which is analysed in Chapter III, while Chapter IV treats of
the elements, peculiarities, and structure of belief, its operation on the
hearer's mind, and kindred topics. Professor Owen has given much thought
to this important problem, but it is difficult to say even after a careful
perusal how specialists in logic will take to his investigations, and how far
his colleagues in this special line of thought will deem his lucubrations sig-
nificant.

VOL. XV. JULY, 1905. No. 3.

THE MONIST

THE RELATIONAL ELEMENT IN MONISM.

TN the ever-changing panorama which the world offers to the con-
templation of sentient beings, two characters have never failed
to arouse the interest of the human mind, to provoke it to the activ-
ities of philosophic thought — the manner in which objects are related
to each other, and the nature of the objects themselves. Being
under necessity of adapting himself to it, man looks to the external
world for the materials of an organized intellectual awareness to
its twofold aspect of extension, or so-called "space," of succession,
or so-called "time." Among the most important of the conditions
of this awareness, two may be mentioned — on the one hand man's
local position in nature and limited power of movement within it,
restricting him to a mere fragment of its vast spatial extent ; on the
other hand, that serial character of the mind process which, yield-
ing direct glimpses in such narrow area of no more than momentary
aspects of the nature there accessible to him, confines him largely
to the appearances yielded by objects in the present stage of their
cycle of change. The conditions of man's existence thus combine
with the limitations of sense to favor incomplete and therefore
erroneous views of nature — lead man, that is to say, to treat the
local environment with which he is familiar as if it were the whole
environment ; to regard the present stage of the objects with which
he is acquainted as if it constituted all the stages of such objects ;
in a word, to confound each sense-image with the object which it
merely represents, and thus to make the temporary and local aspects

322 THE MONIST.

of the world around him do duty in his intellectual processes for
nature in its totality.

Now the actual mechanism of these limitations — given man's
local position in "space" — has always been the sense-image ; and as
the sense-image restricts us to single objects at a time, as well as to
the present aspects of such objects, it makes our power to realize
what objects are as wholes in "time" and "space" depend on that sup-
plementary intellectual process by which the mind segregates and uni-
fies all the objective aspects of the environment which sense-images
yield. But as this intellectual process, this ordering of the sense-
images by the intellect, this totalizing of the fragmentary elements of
sense, matures late in the history of the race, the early period of man's
acquaintance with nature is one in which he is not only restricted
to little more than sense-image knowledge of it, but is compelled
to view objects as dynamically isolated from, as out of relation to
each other. For as sense-knowledge contains no evidence, apart
from the intellectual process, of the way in which objects are in-
timately and fundamentally related to each other, of how they are
connected by action and reaction, it compels the primitive mind to
treat each of them as having absolute instead of contingent exist-
ence, as possessing in and of itself all the qualities or properties
which it manifests, as being self-sourced instead of system-sourced.

There has undoubtedly been advance on this primitive treatment
of objects as if they existed independently of each other; consider-
able progress has even been made towards the realization of their
dynamic interrelatedness. For sense-images are merely the mate-
rials of nature knowledge ; in the earliest stages of its development,
the human mind was always at work upon this sense-material, classi-
fying, segregating, unifying it under the stress of an impulsion to
self-maintenance that demanded of the organism an increasingly ac-
curate adjustment of itself to environment. Yet it is only in the
modern stage that this intellectual process has attained anything
like considerable development. Releasing the mind from more or
less dependence on the present aspect of an object, it has enabled
us to realize the object as constituted of all its aspects — of all the
changes through which it passes — and thus to deal with it intel-

THE RELATIONAL ELEMENT IN MONISM. 323

lectually as a whole in time ; by simultaneously revealing interaction
between the individual object and other objects, it has enabled us to
recognize that objects are not isolated from each other, but dynam-
ically interrelated and interdetermining.

That the doctrine of "evolution," so called, should have formed
the first great step towards the completion of nature knowledge
becomes explicable only when regard is had to the fact that the re-
lations earliest revealed to the mind are always those of change.
As the "time" aspects of objects are aspects of difference; as it is
the procession of an object from one stage of its existence to another
and not its continuing existence, which most excites our attention —
it was inevitable that when the human mind began to reach out for
the deeper and wider acquaintance with objects which is to be gained
only from a knowledge of their connection with each other, it should
have been overwhelmingly impressed, not with the fact of their
relation in "space," but with the phenomena of their relation in
"time." And if it be asked why the mind has simultaneously fallen
short in the equally necessary process of realizing objects as total-
ities in their extension aspect, the reply is that the field is here not
one of differences that shock the consciousness because they em-
body change, but of resemblances cognizable by the intellect rather
than by the senses — that the deeper extension aspects of existence,
being aspects of the fundamental, the universal, the permanent,
manifest themselves, not as differences, but as likenesses, and long
resisting the solvent of the sense knowledge, yield only to the in-
tellectual process, thus coming late into nature knowledge as one of
its most mature and advanced stages. The result of this failure to
complete our succession or "evolutionary" knowledge of objects
with an equally radical insight into the extension aspect of nature
has been, so far as the fundamental method of its thought is con-
cerned, to retain science in a stage which has advanced little beyond
that represented by the mind of primitive man. There is undoubted
recognition of the fact that objects are interrelated by action, yet
the action is viewed independently of the nature of the objects
which act. Alike in regard to their motion and nature, objects are
regarded, not as contingent, but as absolute existences — not as

3^4 THE MONIST.

system-sourced, but as self-sourced — not as constitutively, but as
adventitiously related.

ii.

Let us now see what this absolute view of objects must signify
for nature knowledge, even when pervaded and permeated here and
there by glimpses of the larger relational view. Observe first how
it diminishes interest in and retards discovery of the relations which
exist between the different phases of objects in both "time" and
"space." For if an object as extended possess its properties abso-
lutely, no new knowledge of it can be gained by inquiring into the
properties of other objects; if, on the other hand, it possess each
"time" phase of its existence absolutely, nothing can be gained by in-
quiring into the nature of the other phases. Whence it follows that,
were we to accept the absolute view of objects — the view that they
are self-sourced rather than system-sourced — it could only be a waste
of effort to seek for the individual being the explanation yielded by
the human society, to consider the cell in the light of the community
of cells, to study life in general in order to obtain accurate knowl-
edge of some special class of organisms, to rely on the inorganic
for the characters of the organic, to resort to the universe for the
illumination of the unit. In the view that each object possesses its
powers independently of all other objects, the search for cause,
which has done so much for the advance of nature knowledge,
dwindles to a mere quest after relation between states of conscious-
ness until the organism comes to be regarded as in no way neces-
sarily dependent for such states upon any real, upon any actual
universe which can be conceived of as existing outside. We find
this uncertainty even in Kant ; the very belief of Hume, still linger-
ing in the philosophical aspect of nature study, to the effect that
our supposed knowledge of cause is wholly subjective — that what
we call causal relation is merely the habitual succession of states of
consciousness — is itself due to the inadequate recognition of the rela-
tion which exists between organism and environment — failure to
view conscious states as necessarily related to objects outside the
organism themselves interrelated — failure also to regard objective
relations as constitutive instead of merely adventitious.

THE RELATIONAL ELEMENT IN MONISM. 325

We may begin our consideration of the retarding effects of
the absolute view, here contrasted with the relational view of nature,
by noting the almost complete indifference which science has thus
far shown towards the problem of the relation of substance — of
the world of ether and matter — to so-called "space"; and it has
shown this indifference in the supposition that the problem is one
of no importance for the practical interests of nature investigation.
Meanwhile, it has tacitly accepted the view that "space," as a con-
taining capacity for objects which would remain even were objects
annihilated, is a real entity, an existence sui generis. Says Tyndall,
in his paper on The Constitution of Nature:

"Though compelled to think of space as unbounded, there is no mental
necessity appealing to us to think of it either as filled or empty; whether it
is so or not must be decided by experiment and observation. .. .If the ether
have a boundary, masses of ponderable matter might be conceived to exist
beyond it, but they emit no light. . . .As far as our knowledge of space extends,
we are to conceive of it as the holder of the luminiferous ether through which
are interspersed, at enormous distances apart, the ponderous nuclei of the
stars."

The result of specialism thus unfounded in the intellectual con-
ditions of nature knowledge has been to delay our realization of
the universe as a unity, since the assumption of an entity called
"space," which existence merely "occupies," compels us to com-
promise in our minds between two ideas — the conception of a uni-
verse of objects which "fills" space and is therefore unending, and
the conception of a cosmic system which, being limited, is bounded
in every direction by "universal space." If we accept the former
view, the notion of definite characters — definite amounts of power
and of the passing over of power into movement — disappears in
the thought of indefinite spatial vastness, or is reduced to an impasse
of contradiction between characters which, though mentally con-
ceivable, are intellectually irreconcilable ; if we accept the view of a
limited cosmos locally situated in "universal space," we raise the
question of the possibility of other systems, and with it that problem
of the relation between them which, unless affirmatively resolved,
with the result of irreconcilable contradiction, brings the thought
of cosmic unity to an end: as the term "universe," implying "one-

326 THE MONIST.

ness," signifies all-inclusive totality, it becomes a misnomer when
an attempt is made to utilize it for the pseudo-conception of a plural-
ity of "universes" separated from each other by tracts of unoccupied
emptiness. That the thought of an existence vacuum which objects
merely "occupy" has otherwise retarded nature knowledge is well
seen in the assumption, frequently met with in scientific treatises,
that heat may be dissipated from "our universe" into "space," as
well as in the historic confusion of "empty space" with the ether
system, and in the contradictory assumptions of popular science
regarding what are called "the confines of the universe," the "limits
of our system," the "material universe," etc.

in.

In now passing from the most general to the more concrete of
the nature problems, it will help us if we bear in mind that the
absolute view of objects — the view that each exists independently
of all the rest, and that the relation between them is adventitious,
not constitutive — ignores three principles of the profoundest import
for nature study. These principles may be stated as follows :

1. The Principle of Likeness. Objects which, however they
may differ in superficial characters, resemble each other in funda-
mental characters, belong to the same system, and must be inter-
preted in the same way.

2. The Principle of Derivation. Wherever in local, superficial,
transitory aspects of nature we find characters that demand explana-
tion, we are bound to seek that explanation not in other local, super-
ficial, transitory aspects of existence, but in its permanent, funda-
mental and universal characters.

3. The Principle of Universality. True explanations of nature
cannot be isolated explanations, explanations sui generis, explana-
tions ad rem, but must be explanations which are themselves inter-
related. In other words, all great laws which are to formulate or
describe nature processes must be laws that are primordially valid
for the universal, the fundamental, the permanent characters of the
cosmic process, before being derivatively valid for its local, super-
ficial, and transitory characters. The explanatory range of every

THE RELATIONAL ELEMENT IN MONISM. 327

true natural law, that is to say, must resemble, to use a homely
illustration, the range of a through train which reaches the sub-
sidiary, suburban, outlying stations only because it has begun its
trip in the great metropolis.

All three principles assume and demand the thought of the all-
inclusive unity of the cosmos. The first, aimed at the failure to
realize cosmic unity, preserves us from separating in our thought
great classes of phenomena that belong together; the second saves
us from the temptation, so strongly held out by sense knowledge
and our local position in the universe, to reverse true principles of
interpretation by employing the local and immediate for the eluci-
dation of the permanent and the universal ; the third emphasizes
the orderly filiation of all explanations of nature phenomena by
referring such phenomena to their ultimate source in the substance
system. Accepting all three, as we are compelled to do, then it
follows — from the principle of likeness, that matter and ether, being
connected by action and reaction, are of fundamentally the same
nature — from the principle of derivation, that we must interpret
the mind by the body, and not the body by the mind ; the individual
by society, and not society by the individual ; the cell by the organ-
ism, not the organism by the cell ; the organic by the inorganic, and
not the inorganic by the organic ; matter by substance, not substance
by matter; the unit by the universe, not the universe by the unit —
from the principle of universality, that whatever explanations are
reached for vital, for chemical, for electro-magnetic, for gravitative
phenomena, must be interrelated explanations, and that the causal
determinations which result in organic activity and structure cannot
be other than derivative forms of the causal determinations out of
which inorganic activities and structures arise.

Now all these principles are more or less negatived or ignored
in the absolute attitude towards nature — in the tacit acceptance by
our so-called "scientific method" of the view that objects, possessing
their characters absolutely, are related to each other not constitu-
tively, but only adventitiously — in views, that is to say, which really
go together, for if an object be self-sourced, then any relation be-
tween it and other objects must be adventitious, while if the object

328 THE MONIST.

be system-sourced, then any relation between it and other objects
must be constitutive. Taking our first example from the most im-
portant of the concrete nature problems, we may easily recognize
that, by ignoring the principle of likeness, the physicist need not
assume that there is any relation other than an adventitious one
between matter and ether; while, by denying the principle of deri-
vation, he may even seek to explain ether from matter — the uni-
versal from the merely local element, with the result of one or other
of the familiar comparisons in which physicists liken ether to jelly,
wax, or steel. Well-nigh all the difficulties thus far met with by
the human mind in trying to realize the nature of ether have been
difficulties resulting from the effort to approximate it to the nature
of matter. Le Sage used material corpuscles to elucidate gravitative
action ; Newton's theory of light had an analogous basis in matter ;
heat was long traced to material elements which could be mingled
with and obtained from the molecules of objects; the early "fluid"
hypothesis of electricity anticipated, in its material character, certain
modern methods of accounting for the luminous manifestations of
electro-magnetic phenomena ; it is still, in our own time found pos-
sible to formulate hypotheses for ether which contradict those held
for matter, as in the case of the so-called "vortex-atom" theory,
which asserts the possibility of "frictionless" or unresisted motion.
The absolute view of objects as existing independently of the
system of objects carries with it the belief that the motion of an
object is similarly independent. Even in modern times it has
seemed unnecessary to set up any indispensable relation between
motion and resistance to motion, whence physicists are able to pro-
pound hypotheses regarding matter which accept or reject at will
the notion that movement is possible in an existence vacuum. Nor
does the ability of the mind to do this depend altogether on the sur-
vival of the old thought of the ether system as a vast emptiness
whose only function is to allow itself to be occupied by objects. If
the object be itself absolute — related only adventitiously and not con-
stitutively to other objects — then its motion must in like manner
be absolute, and we may conceive of it as being utterly indifferent
to the presence or absence of resistance — may conceive of it, that

THE RELATIONAL ELEMENT IN MONISM. 329

is to say, as motion against resistance, or as motion without resist-
ance, according to the assumed circumstances. The important
question whether the resistance is constitutively bound up with the
motion as an essential and therefore indispensable element thereof,
thus turns on the question whether the object which moves exists
absolutely, or only by virtue of some relation which connects it with
the system of objects. If, moreover, each unit object be regarded
as possessing its nature as such absolutely, instead of contingently
upon the system ; and if motion be also viewed absolutely, as a char-
acter not constitutively related either to the nature of the object or
to the nature of the system ; then physicists are compelled to resort
to one of two hypotheses — either to regard motion as an original,
underived property of matter, possessed by each unit object, or to
treat it as divinely originated at some period in the early history of
the cosmos. The latter view is now widely rejected as anthropo-
morphic; as to the former, it will suffice to say that, besides being
a negation of inertia, it is an effort to set up for unit objects in the
"celestial spaces," characters which are denied by our experience of
such objects on the surface of the earth. The law of likeness re-
quires us to recognize the fundamental oneness of all the forms of
power, yet physicists have thus far failed to unify the power which
an object puts forth as moving with the power which the* same
object possesses and exerts by virtue of its nature as related to all
other objects. Meanwhile the principle of derivation has been ig-
nored in the effort to make all power kinetic by deducing it from
motion instead of from substance.

IV.

This question of the relation of motion to the resistance which
it encounters is always met with whenever we come to discuss such
problems as the origin of motion, the direction of motion, the con-
servation of energy, inertia, and cause. As it is of the utmost im-
portance for us to reach relational rather than absolute solutions
of such problems, we shall lose nothing by re-emphasizing, in a
special form for each, the constitutive relation whereby motion and
resistance inter-condition and inter-involve each other. Note first

33° THE MONIST.

the difference between the absolute and the relative view of the
origin of motion; in the absolute view motion is adventitiously ac-
quired from the system, and is under no necessity of returning its
energy to the system, whereas in the relational view the energy of
motion, being from the system, must be returned to it. Our modern
account, again, of motion as taking place along, or as following, the
line of least resistance, cannot be regarded as other than overwhelm-
ingly absolute. By distinguishing with such definiteness between
the initial stress which results in motion and the resistance which the
moving object encounters, it makes the so-called "resistance" adven-
titious merely — something which, so to speak, motion finds it has
to deal with after it has once been set up. To say that motion fol-
lows the line of least resistance is to assume that the "least resist-
ance" is something superadded to a process which already exists
de toutes pieces, is therefore complete independently of whether
there is resistance or none — in advance, that is to say, of any ex-
perience of resistance by the moving object. The absolute view re-
gards motion as a character sui generis — as something which must
happen whether it be "resisted" or not — as a change which, while
it frequently takes place through a resisting medium, may also
take place through an existence-vacuum — as something which is
resisted not because "resistance" is any necessary, indispensable
part of the motion process, but only because, under certain condi-
tions, "resistance" happens to be present. The absolute view thus
relates the "line of least resistance" adventitiously to the stress pro-
ducing motion; the relational view relates it constitutively to that
stress, and does this by showing that resistance, re-stress, or re-action
is an essential condition of the stress which produces motion, and
therefore an indispensable element of the motion process. The
intellectual conditions of the problem, moreover, do not permit
of an absolute view of motion, since were it possible for bodies to
move through "empty space," the motion of such objects, being
unresisted, would require no stress to initiate it, and we should be
compelled to conceive of them as indifferently at rest or in motion —
as lacking definiteness of condition.

An inevitable result of the view which regards the unit object

THE RELATIONAL ELEMENT IN MONISM. 33!

as possessing its properties absolutely, which disconnects the power
of motion from the power of substance, and finds no constitutive
necessity for a relation between matter and ether, is the absolute
attitude of modern physics towards the method of the so-called
"conservation of energy." The term "conservation" is itself ob-
jectionable, since it makes half the process do duty for the whole
process. Not only must energy be expended in order to be con-
served— there is no energy in any form save to the extent that "ex-
penditure" and "conservation" take place simultaneously. Power,
in a word, whether it be the power of objects or of the motion of
objects, can exist only in the degree of a conserving process which
involves expenditure, and of an expending process which involves
conservation. To speak of a "conservation" of energy, moreover,
is to suggest that, were the conditions unfavorable, energy might fail
to be "conserved," might pass out of existence — in which supposi-
tion there is at once the error of implying that energy is complete be-
fore it is conserved, and the error of denying that presence of a con-
serving process which is the indispensable condition of expenditure.
Note also that the absolute view provides two methods of conserva-
tion instead of one — methods wholly irreconcilable with each other
— the distribution of the stress into the resistance, when there is
resistance; and the continuance of the motion when there is "no
resistance." It thus treats "expenditure" and "conservation" as sep-
arate processes either of which might theoretically exist without the
other ; it therefore regards the relation between them as adventitious.
In the relational view they are constitutively related, since they
reciprocally interinvolve each other as aspects of the two-sided
unity which we call Power.

Observe now some of the results which the absolute attitude
towards "conservation" makes inevitable. If "conservation of en-
ergy" is a character possessed absolutely, not contingently, by mat-
ter, then it is useless to seek the explanation of it in any process out-
side the realm of matter. If, again, the power with which an object
moves is something sui generis — not related either to the nature of
the object or to the power of substance — it is equally useless to
seek for any relation between the "conservation" of the energy of

332 THE MONIST.

motion and the "conservation" of mass (the so-called indestructibil-
ity of matter). And if, finally, the conservation of the organism is
in like manner something absolute, instead of contingent, there need
be no inquiry as to its origin in earlier and more universal forms of
conservation. It is, in fact, by failing to relate to each other the
various forms of conservation — conservation of ether, conservation
of motion, conservation of the organism — that science ignores the
principles of likeness, derivation, and universality, and therefore
abandons all hope of the solutions to which the application of these
principles inevitably lead.

Here we reach the conception of inertia, which is similarly
open to an absolute and a relational interpretation. Bodies are said
to "persist" in their condition of rest or motion until that condition
is changed by power other than their own — to go on moving in a
straight line until they meet with resistance or are made to change
their condition by force. All such propositions are characteristic-
ally absolute : they warn us of the possibility of resistance ( reaction ),
but say nothing of its necessity. They assume that the moving ob-
ject, with a convenient existence-vacuum for its "medium," may
go on moving for ever; yet they fail to show how motion is pos-
sible to an object which the proposition has disconnected from the
universe. In the absolute view, lingering everywhere in modern
physics, the object is held to possess its condition of rest or of
movement independently of its relation to the system, or at any
rate, as a result of adventitious, rather than constitutive relation
to the system; the continuous motion of an object is therefore at-
tributed to absence of resistance, instead of to continuity of differ-
ential stress, while the continuous rest of an object is held to be due
to absence of differential stress, instead of to continuity of equalized
stress. All of which is opposed to the relational view, which holds
that when an object remains at rest, it is held at rest by the system
— that when it remains or continues in motion, it is kept in motion
by the system. For inertia, instead of being a condition adven-
titiously acquired from the system, is a condition constitutively im-
posed by the system.

THE RELATIONAL ELEMENT IN MONISM. 333

V.

The neglect to recognize constitutive relation is also seen in
our modern attitude towards the organism, which has long been
viewed absolutely — viewed rather as imposed upon nature, with
powers possessed independently of nature, than as arising out of
nature with such powers contingently originated. Hence the effort
to explain the organism from the cell rather than the cell from the
organism — an effort obviously founded on the belief, however
tacitly held, that the cells are not constitutively, but only adven-
titiously related. This attitude is manifest in the perpetual striving
of biological experts to find in some detail of cell structure the
"secret of life"; in the belief, which confounds the concomitants
of phenomena with their causes, that life is to be traced to some
electrical, fermentive or other local process in the organism. We
are here reminded of the slow advance which has been made towards
relational views since the time when the organs of body and mind
were treated by physicians as if each existed and possessed its
powers more or less independently of the rest — when specialists
expert in one field of human pathology were not expected to know
anything of the other fields — when sociology, essentially a science
of human relations, was not yet born, and it was the custom to
regard the characters of the human being as individually intelligible,
instead of as being explicable only in the light of the society of
individuals. As early hypotheses regarding man left out of con-
sideration the world of the lower organic life, in the supposition
that man was self-sourced, instead of system-sourced, so theorists
in the realm of human society took that absolute view of the indi-
vidual human being out of which the exaggerated individualism of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had its birth. Even to-day
our science of sociology still treats the human individual as related
more or less adventitiously instead of constitutively to the sum of
individuals, the biological idea, itself absolute, of a system of co-
operating units, each complete in itself, having been incorporated
almost bodily into the scientific conception of the social system.

334 THE MONIST.

Note also how the absolute view has retarded our knowledge
of the process of organic development. In the theory of "natural
selection" we have an explanation contrived for organisms which has
no application to anorgana — a law which, being ad rem, describes
no part of that higher, that more universal process in which organic
development must have originated. And it is because of this iso-
lation of the special theory from any more general theory that we
have been compelled to ignore the problem of the manner in which
variations arise in the attention which we give to the manner in which
they are accumulated — to believe, in a word, that we can solve the
problem of the "origin of species" without having first solved the
problem of the origin of life. Instead of seeking in the world of
the inorganic for some fundamental process of which the superficial
organic process is merely a highly special and derivative form, we
have been trying to explain the organism by dealing with it alone —
by treating it as an object sui generis, as an object totally unrelated,
or related only adventitiously, to the general system of objects
which we call nature.

It is also in the very temper of the absolute view that we have
dealt with the problem of intelligence. The principle of derivation
requires us to explain the conscious from the unconscious forms of
intelligence, yet we have never succeeded in ridding ourselves of
the notion that some form of conscious intelligence, if not our own,
is at work in the countless adaptations of structure and process
which we find within the bodies of plants and animals. In like
manner, the principle of derivation requires us to refer the general
intelligence of the organism, conscious as well as unconscious, to
that larger world in which it must have had its origin; yet instead
of tracing organic intelligence to the inorganic cosmos, where the
fundamental characters of that intelligence are plainly manifest,
we try to read into the universe the most local, the most special,
the most transitory forms of intelligent activity — those associated
with the consciousness of the human organism. For scientific pur-
poses, that is to say, we seek to explain the intelligence of the
organism by making the atoms of matter intelligent; for general
purposes, we try to understand nature by referring its intelligent

THE RELATIONAL ELEMENT IN MONISM. 335

adaptations to a divine intelligence patterned after the intelligence
of man.

VI.

The contrast thus shown between absolute and relational views
may be traced, with simultaneous disclosure of the source of in-
accuracy in the former, through every department of human knowl-
edge. Everywhere the absolute method is the method of ignoring
the dependence of the individual object, the single process, on the
sum of processes, the system of objects; the relational view is
everywhere the method of viewing objects and processes in the light
of the totality of processes and objects. Advance in nature knowl-
edge, however darkened and disguised by imperfect method, has
ever been advance from absolute to relational ways of viewing
nature; it has always meant progress from the thought of the ob-
ject as self-sourced to the thought of it as system-sourced ; it has
never been anything other than the progressive mastery, by recog-
nition of fundamental likeness, of those relations of stress and re-
stress, of action and re-action, which make up the total system of
power which we call universe. Nor is the contrast between absolute
and relational merely a character of mental processes: it has its
foundation and source in the world of objects. The whole of so-
called development, alike in inorganic and organic, is nothing other
than a gradual setting up of relation between units and groups —
a growing dependence of each unit on the sum of units, — a gradual
increase of the contribution made by unit to group, by group to
unit — a progressive subordination of unit to system — an advancing
domination of unit by system. The formation of matter groups by
the gravitational and chemical processes is simply the earlier form
of the process which manifests itself on a larger scale in the phe-
nomena of crystallization, and on its most complex scale in the or-
ganism and in human society. In all the movements with which
sociology deals — movements industrial, political, philanthropic, re-
ligious— life shows itself as a moving away from conditions that are
absolute towards conditions that are relational. As all failures of
nature knowledge have been failures of the absolute view, so all

THE MONIST.

failures in conduct, individual and national, have resulted from an
inadequate sense of relation — from the effort to substitute for
system-sourced conduct the conduct which is sourced in self. Move-
ment away from the view of the individual and the group as self-
dependent towards the view of both as contingent upon and domi-
nated by the system — this is the process which has been at the heart
of all moral advance.

It is now proposed to rationalize, and therefore to universalize
the procedure which has thus far been followed in the investigation
of nature — to make application to the cosmos as a whole the method
which has hitherto been applied only locally and fragmentarily,
and has thus been applied with inadequate realization of its universal
meaning and scope. In the relational view, the solution of nature
problems yet unsolved is nothing other than a process of reaching
out from the individual object, the individual process, to the system
which is to elucidate both — a passing from the local and superficial
characters which most easily affect the senses to those fundamental
and universal characters which appeal to the intellect — a process
of universalization which, demanding fundamental likeness as the
condition of its possibility, implies a universe of one kind through-
out whose units, everywhere system-contributing and system-de-
termined, exist only as they are constitutively interdependent.

Reasserting, therefore, the supremacy of the total mind process
over the deliverances of the senses, as well as over every imperfect
application of the intellect to those deliverances, the relational view
demands that our knowledge of nature, instead of being made up of
unrelated or imperfectly related views, shall have its foundation in
an outlook over the whole field. Holding that the warrant for any
view of nature must always be the reasonableness of that view —
its consistency with all other attainable truths, with all other propo-
sitions believed to be true — it casts the light of the relational method
over the path hitherto traversed by the mind. It indicates the way yet
to be followed ; it points also the goal to be reached. Its task is that
of completing the monistic account of nature, and of doing this by
revealing that cosmic unity which the accumulated facts of science,
when relationally interpreted, already disclose.

THE RELATIONAL ELEMENT IN MONISM. 337

The aim of the relational philosophy, so far as concrete nature
problems are concerned, is to relate motion to the forms as well as
to the substance of the cosmos; to correlate gravitation with light,
electro-magnetism, heat; to connect chemical with electro-magnetic
action; to unify the self -maintaining organism with the self-main-
taining universe ; to revise the theory of natural selection with such
an account of the internal factors of organic development as shall
separate the process by which intelligent adaptations are accumu-
lated from the process by which they are originated ; to universalize
so-called "intelligence" by showing it to be primarily neither a con-
scious nor even an organic process, but a process rooted in the
very nature of power; and finally, without danger of "pantheistic
absorption" or injury to moral interests, to derive all organic and
inorganic characters — characters of form, characters of motion,
characters of mind — from their fountain and source, the substance
system, the Creative Universe.

EDMUND NOBLE.
BOSTON, MASS.

ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LOGIC AND ARITH-
METIC1

"\TfHILE to-day in researches on the foundations of geometry
we are essentially agreed as to the procedures to be adopted
and the ends to be sought, it is quite otherwise with the inquiry
concerning the foundations of arithmetic: here even yet the most
diverse notions of the investigators stand bluntly opposed to each
other.

The difficulties in the founding of arithmetic are partly indeed
of a different character from those which were to be overcome in
the founding of geometry.

In the examination of the foundations of geometry it was
possible to leave aside certain difficulties of a purely arithmetical
nature ; in the founding of arithmetic, however, the appeal to another
basal science seems unallowable.

I shall show the essential difficulties in the founding of arith-
metic most clearly by subjecting to a brief critical discussion the
views of individual investigators.

L. Kronecker, you know, saw in the concept of the whole
number the true foundation of arithmetic; he formed the concep-
tion, that the integer, and that too as a general notion (parameter
value), is directly and immediately given; thereby he was prevented
from recognizing, that the idea of the whole number needs and is
susceptible of a foundation. In so far I would designate him as
a dogmatist: he takes the integer with its essential properties as
dogma and makes no attempt to get behind it.

1 Translated by George Bruce Halsted.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF LOGIC AND ARITHMETIC. 339

H. Helmholtz represents the standpoint of the empiricist;
the standpoint of pure experience, however, seems to me to be
refuted by the objection, that from experience, that is, through
experiment, can never be gotten the possibility or the existence
of an indefinitely great number. For the number of the things
which are object of our experience, even though it is great, lies
nevertheless below a finite limit.

E. B. Christ off el and all those opponents of Kronecker's, who,
led by the correct feeling, that without the concept of the irrational
number the whole of analysis would remain doomed to unfruit-
fulness, seek, by finding out "positive" properties of this concept
or through like means to save the existence of the irrational number,
I would designate as opportunists.

In my opinion, however, they have not succeeded in reaching
a real refutation of the Kronecker standpoint. ..";;-

Among the scientists who have penetrated more deeply into
the essence of the whole number, I may mention the following:

G. Frege sets himself the problem of founding the laws of
arithmetic by means of logic, this taken in the usual sense. He
has the merit of having rightly apprehended the essential properties
of the concept of the whole number as well as the significance of
the inference by complete induction. Inasmuch as he, however,
true to his plan, takes this also among others as axiom, that a con-
cept (an aggregate) is defined and immediately available, provided
only it be determined for every object, whether it falls under the
concept or not, and also in doing this subjects the concept "every"
to no restriction, he exposes himself to just those paradoxes of the
theory of aggregates, which lie, for instance, in the concept of the
aggregate of all aggregates and which, it seems to me, show that the
conceptions and means of investigation of logic, taken in the usual
sense, are not adequate to the rigorous requirements set up by the
theory of aggregates.

The avoidance of such contradictions and the clearing up of
those paradoxes is rather from the very outset to be fixed upon as
a chief aim in researches on the number concept.

R. Dedekind has clearly perceived the mathematical difficulties

34O THE MONIST.

in the founding of the number concept and in most ingenious fashion
first supplied a construction of the theory of whole numbers.

I would, however, designate his as a transcendental method
in so far as he conducts his proof for the existence of the infinite
in a way, whose fundamental idea is indeed used in like manner
by philosophers, but which because of the unavoidable contradiction
of the concept therein employed of the totality of all things, I
cannot acknowledge as allowable and sure.

G. Cantor has perceived the above-mentioned contradiction and
has given expression to this perception by distinguishing between
"consistent" and "inconsistent" aggregates. Inasmuch as he, how-
ever, in my opinion sets up no sharp criterion for this distinc-
tion, I must designate his conception on this point as one which
still leaves room for the subjective judgment and therefore affords
no objective certainty.

I am of the opinion all the difficulties touched upon can be
overcome and we can attain to a rigorous and entirely satisfactory
founding of the number concept, and that by a method, which I
would call axiomatic, whose fundamental idea I wish briefly to
develop in what follows.

Arithmetic is indeed designated as a part of logic and it is
customary to presuppose in founding artithmetic the traditional
fundamental principles of logic.

But on attentive consideration we become aware, that in the
usual exposition of the laws of logic certain fundamental concepts
of arithmetic are already employed, for example the concept of the
aggregate, in part also the concept of number.

We fall thus into a vicious circle and therefore to avoid para-
doxes a partly simultaneous development of the laws of logic and
arithmetic is requisite.

In the brief space of a lecture I can merely indicate how I
conceive of this common construction. Therefore I ask indulgence
if I succeed only in giving you a rough notion of what direction
my researches are taking. Moreover, for the sake of being more
easily understood, I shall employ the ordinary speech "in words"

THE FOUNDATIONS OF LOGIC AND ARITHMETIC. 341

and the laws of logic therein indirectly expressed, more than would
be desirable in an exact construction.

Let an object of our thinking be called a thought-thing or
briefly a thing and designated by a symbol.

Let us take as the basis of our consideration first of all a
thought-thing I (one).

The taking of this thing together with itself respectively two,
three or more times, as:

II, III, IIII,

we designate as combinations of the thing i with itself; in like
manner any combinations of these combinations, as:

are in turn called combinations of this thing I with itself.

The combinations likewise are designated merely as things
and then in distinction to this the fundamental thought-thing i as
simple thing.

We adjoin now a second simple thought-thing and denote it
by the symbol =( equal). We consider now in turn the combinations
of these two thought-things, as :

We say, the combination a of the simple things i, = differs
from the combination b of those things, if they, as regards the mode
and sequence of the combination, or the choice and participation of
the things i, = themselves, deviate in any way from one another,
that is if a and b are not identical with each other.

Now let us think the things i, = and their combinations as
somehow divided into two classes, the class of the existent and the
class of the non-existent: everything which belongs to the class of
the existent, differs from everything which belongs to the class of
the non-existent. Every combination of the two simple things i, =
belongs to one of these two classes.

If a is a combination of the two fundamental things i, =, then
we designate also by a the statement, that a belongs to the class

342 THE MONIST.

of the existent, and by a the statement, that a belongs to the class
of the non-existent. We designate a as a true statement, if a belongs
to the class of the existent ; on the other hand let a be called a true
statement, if a belongs to the class of the non-existent.

The statements a and a constitute a contradiction.

The composite from two statements, A, B, represented in sym-
bols by

A|B,

in words: "from A follows B" or "if A is true, B also is true" is
likewise called a statement and then A is called the hypothesis, B
the conclusion.

Hypothesis and conclusion may themselves in turn consist of
several statements A1} A2, respectively B1} B2, B3 and so forth, in
symbols :

A! & A2 | B± o. B2 o. B3,

in words: "from Ax and A2 follows B1? or B2, or B3" and so forth.

In consequence of the symbol o. (or) it would be possible,
since negation is already introduced, to avoid the symbol | ; I use
it in this lecture merely to follow as much as possible the customary
word-speech.

We will understand by A1} A2, . . . respectively those statements
which — to be brief — result from a statement A(^r) when in place
of the "arbitrary" x we take the thought-things I, = and their
combinations ; then we write the statements

At o. A2 o. A3,. . . respectively Al & A2 & A3,. . .
also, as follows:

A(^r(o)), in words "at least for one x"

respectively A(^r(&)), in words "for every single x"

in this we see merely an abbreviated way of writing.

We make now from the fundamental two things I, = the fol-
lowing statements:

1 . x = x

2. [x — y & w (x}} | w(y).

Therein x (in the sense of .ar(&)) means each of the two funda-

THE FOUNDATIONS OF LOGIC AND ARITHMETIC. 343

mental thought-things and every combination of them; in 2. y (in
the sense of y&)) is likewise each of those things and each combina-
tion, furthermore w(x) an "arbitrary" combination, which contains
the "arbitrary" x, (in the sense of .r(&)) ; the statement 2. reads in
words :

From x = y and w(x} follows w(y).

The statements i., 2. form the definition of the concept =
(equal) and are in so far also called axioms.

If one puts in place of the arbitraries x, y in the axioms I., 2.
the simple things I, = or particular combinations of them, there
result particular statements, which may be called inferences from
those axioms.

We consider a series of certain inferences of such a sort, that
the hypotheses of the last inference of the series are identical with
the conclusions of the preceding inferences.

Then if we take the hypotheses of the preceding inferences as
hypothesis and the conclusion of the last inference as conclusion,
there results a new statement, which in turn may be designated as
an inference from the axioms.

By continuation of this deduction-process we may obtain further
inferences.

We select now from these inferences those which have the
simple form of the statement a (affirmation without hypothesis),
and comprehend the things a so resulting in the class of the existent,
while the things differing from these may belong to the class of the
non-existent.

We recognize, that from I., 2. only inferences of the form
a = a ever arise, where a is a combination of the things I, =.

The axioms I., 2. in their turn as regards the partition in ques-
tion of the things into the two classes are also fulfilled, that is true
statements, and because of this property of the axioms I., 2. we
designate the concept = (equal) defined by them as a concept free
from contradiction.

I would call attention to the fact, that the axioms i., 2. do not
at all contain a statement of the form a, that is a statement, accord-

344 THE MONIST.

ing to which a combination is to be found in the class of the non-
existent.

We therefore could also satisfy the axioms by comprehending
the combinations of the two simple things all in the class of the
existent and leaving the class of the non-existent empty.

The partition above chosen into the two classes, however, shows
better how to proceed in the subsequent more difficult cases.

We now carry the construction of the logical foundations of
mathematical thinking further, by adjoining to the two thought-
things u (infinite aggregate, infinite), f (following), f (accom-
panying operation) and laying down for them the following axioms:

3. f(u*)=u(fX>

4. f(u;r) = f(u;y)| ux = uy

5. f(tur)=ui

Therein the arbitrary x (in the sense of ^r(&)) means each of the
five now fundamental thought-things and every combination of
them.

The thought-thing u may be called briefly infinite aggregate
and the combination MJC (for example ui, u(n), uf) an element of
this infinite aggregate u.

The axiom 3. then expresses, that after each element \ax fol-
lows a definite thought-thing f(ujF), which is equal to an element
of the aggregate u, namely to the element u(f'^r), that is belongs
likewise to the aggregate u.

The axiom 4. expresses the fact, that, if the same element fol-
lows two elements of the aggregate u, those elements also are equal.

According to axiom 5. there is no element in u, after which the
element ui follows; this element ui may therefore be called the
first element in u.

We have now to subject the axioms i. — 5. to the investigation
corresponding to that before made of the axioms i., 2. ; therein it
is to be noticed, that those axioms i., 2. at the same time experience
an extension of their validity, inasmuch as now the arbitraries
x, y mean any combinations you please of the five fundamental
simple things.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF LOGIC AND ARITHMETIC. 345

We ask again, whether certain inferences from the axioms
i. — 5. make a contradiction or whether on the contrary the funda-
mental five thought-things i, ==, u, f, f and their combinations can
be so distributed into the class of the existent and the class of the
non-existent, that the axioms I. — 5. in regard to this partition into
classes are fulfilled, that is, as regards that partition into classes,
each inference from those axioms comes to be a true statement.

To answer this question, we take into account that axiom 5.
is the only one which gives rise to statements of the form a, that
is that a combination a of the five fundamental thought-things is to
belong to the class of the non-existent. Statements, which with 5.
make a contradiction, must therefore in any case be of the form :

such an inference, however, can in no wise result from the axioms
i.— 4.

In order to perceive this, we designate the equation, that is the
thought-thing a = b as a homogeneous equation when a and b are
both combinations of two simple things, and also if a and b are both
any combinations of three or both any combinations of four or
more simple things ; for example

(n) = (fu), (ff) = (uf), (fu) = (ui=), (fi)(fi) = (uu)f
[f(ff'u)] = (iuui), [(ff)(in)] = [(i)(ii)(ii)], (fum=)

are called homogeneous equations.

From the axioms i. and 2. alone follow, as we have already
seen, nothing but homogeneous equations, namely the equations of
the form <z = a. Just so axiom 3. gives only homogeneous equa-
tions if in it we take for x any one thought-thing.

Likewise axiom 4. is certain to exhibit in the conclusion always
a homogeneous equation, if only the hypothesis is a homogeneous
equation, and consequently only homogeneous equations can appear
at all as inferences from the axioms I. — 4.

Now, however, the equation 6., which is the one to be proven,
is certainly no homogeneous equation, since therein in place of x^
one has to take a combination and thus the left side comes to be a

346 THE MONIST.

combination of three or more simple things, while the right side
remains a combination of the two simple things u and i.

Herewith is explained, as I think, the thought fundamental for

the recognition of the correctness of my assertion ; for the complete

•

carrying through of the proof there is need of the idea of the finite
ordinal number and certain theorems about the concept of equality
as to number, which in fact at this point can without difficulty be
set up and deduced : for the complete carrying through of the stated
fundamental thought we have still to consider those points of view,
to which I will briefly refer at the close of my lecture. (Compare V.)

The desired partition into classes results therefore, if one reck-
ons as in the class of the existent all things a, where a is an inference
from the axioms i. — 4,, and considers as in the class of the non-
existent all those things which differ from these, especially the
things f(u^r) = ui.

Because of the property of the assumed axioms so found, we
recognize, that these never lead at all to a contradiction, and there-
fore we designate the thought-things u, f, f defined by them as
concepts or operations free from contradiction or as existing free
from contradiction (compatible).

As to the concept of the infinite u in particular, the affirmation
of the existence of the infinite u thus appears justified through the
above indicated exposition; for it gets now a definite meaning and
a content continually to be applied later on.

The investigation just sketched makes the first case in which
the direct proof of the freedom-from-contradiction of axioms has
been successfully given, whereas the method heretofore usual —
especially in geometry — for such proofs, that of suitable specializa-
tion or construction of examples, here necessarily fails.

That this direct proof here succeeds, is, as one sees, essentially
owing to the circumstance, that a statement of the form a, that is
a statement, according to which a certain combination is to belong
to the class of the non-existent, only appears as a conclusion in one
place, namely in axiom 5.

When we translate the known axioms for complete induction
into the speech chosen by me, we attain in like manner to the com-

THE FOUNDATIONS OF LOGIC AND ARITHMETIC. 347

patibility of the so increased axioms, that is to the proof of the contra-
diction-free existence of the so-called smallest infinite* (that is, of
the ordinal type I, 2, 3, . . .).

There is no difficulty in founding the concept of the finite
ordinal number in accordance with the principles above set up;
this is done on the basis of the axiom, that every aggregate which
contains the first element of ordinal number and, in case any element
belongs to it, also contains the one following this, surely must al-
ways contain the last element.

The proof of the compatibility of the axioms follows here very
easily by the bringing in of an example, for instance of the number
two. It is then the main point, to show, that an arrangement of the
elements of the finite ordinal number is possible, such that each
part-aggregate of it possesses a first and a last element — a fact,
which we prove by defining a thought-thing < by the axiom
(x < y & y < *) | x < z

and then recognizing the compatibility of the axioms set up with
the addition of this new axiom, when x, y, z mean arbitrary elements
of the finite ordinal number.

By using the fact of the existence of the smallest infinite, the
theorem then follows also, that for each finite ordinal number a
still greater ordinal number can be found.

The principles which must be normative for the construction
and further elaboration of the laws of mathematical thinking in
the contemplated way, are briefly the following:

I. Arrived at a definite standpoint in the development of the
theory, I may designate a further statement as true, as soon as is
recognized, that it superadded as axiom to the statements already
found true, gives no contradiction, that is leads to inferences, which
in regard to a certain partition of things into the class of the exist-
ent and that of the non-existent are all true statements.

II. In the axioms the arbitraries — as equivalent for the concept
"every" or "all" in the customary logic — represent only those

* Compare my lecture delivered before the International Congress of
Mathematicians at Paris in 1900 : Mathematical Problems, 2. The Compatibility
of the Arithmetical Axioms.

348 THE MONIST.

thought-things and their combinations with one another, which at
that stage are laid down as fundamental or are to be newly defined.
Therefore in the deduction of inferences from the axioms, the arbi-
traries, which occur in the axioms, can be replaced only by such
thought-things and their combinations.

Also we must duly remember, that through the superaddition
and making fundamental of a new thought-thing the preceding
axioms undergo an enlargement of their validity, and where neces-
sary, are to be subjected to a change in conformity with the sense.

III. The aggregate is generally defined as a thought-thing m,
and the combinations mx are called elements of the aggregate m,
so that therefore — in opposition to the usual conception — the con-
cept of the element of an aggregate appears only as later product
of the idea of aggregate.

Exactly as the concept "aggregate" are also "correlation," "trans-
formation," "reference," "function" thought-things for which, pre-
cisely as was done a moment ago with the concept "infinite," the suit-
able axioms are to be stated, and these then in the case of the possi-
bility of the partition of the respective combinations into the class
of the existent and that of the non-existent can be recognized as
compatibly existing.

In I. the creative principle receives expression which in the
freest application warrants us in ever new concept-building with
the sole restriction of the avoidance of a contradiction. The para-
doxes mentioned at the beginning of this lecture become because of
II. and III. impossible; especially does this hold of the paradox of
the aggregate of all aggregates not containing themselves as ele-
ment.

In order to permit the perception of the far-going agreement
in content of the concept of aggregate defined in III. with the
usual aggregate-concept, I prove the following theorem:

At a definite stage in the development let

I, . . ., a, . .., k

be the fundamental thought-things and a(£) a combination of these,
which contains the arbitrary £; further let a (a) be a true statement

THE FOUNDATIONS OF LOGIC AND ARITHMETIC. 349

(that is a (a) in the class of the existent) : then there is sure to
exist a thought-thing m of such a sort, that a(mx) for the arbitrary
x represents true statements only (that is a(mx} always occurs in
the class of the existent) and also inversely each thing £, for which
a(£) represents a true statement, is equal to a combination mx^,
so that the statement

is true, that is the things £, for which a(£) is a true statement, make
the elements of an aggregate m in the sense of the above definition.
In proof we set up the following axiom : m is a thought-thing,
for which the statements
7.
8.

are true, that is if £ is a thing such that o(£) belongs to the class
of the existent, then must m£ = £ hold good, otherwise w| = a ; ad-
join this axiom to the axioms which are valid for the things

I, . . ., a, . . ., k,

and then assume, that thereby a contradiction is produced, that is,
that for the things

i, ..., a, . ..,k, m
perchance the statements

P(m) and p(m}

are at one and the same time inferences, where p(m) is a certain
combination of the things

i, . ..,k, m.

Therewith 8. means in words the stipulation w£ = a, if a(£)
belongs to the class of the non-existent.

Whenever in p(m} the thing m appears in the combination m£,
replace in accordance with the axioms 7. and 8. and taking 2. into
consideration the combination w| by |, respectively a; if from p(m)
is formed in this way q(m) (where now q(m) no longer contains
the thing m in a combination mx}, then must q(m) be an inference
from the original fundamental axioms for

i , . . . , a, . . . , k

35° THE MONIST.

and therewith also remain true if we for m take any one of these
things, as for instance the thing i.

Since the same consideration holds also for the statement p(m),
there would therefore exist also at the original stage, when we take
as a basis the things

i, . . . , a, . . ., k,
the contradiction

g(i) and

which cannot be — it being presupposed that the things

I, ....k

exist free from contradiction. We must therefore reject our assump-
tion, that a contradiction is produced ; in other words, m exists free
from contradiction which was to be proved.

IV. If we wish to investigate a definitely given system of
axioms in accordance with the above principles, then we must parti-
tion the combinations of the fundamental things into the two classes,
that of the existent and that of the non-existent, and in this process
the axioms play the role of prescriptions which the partition must
satisfy.

The chief difficulty will consist in making out the possibility
of the partition of all things into the two classes, that of the existent
and that of the non-existent.

The question of the possibility of this partition is essentially
equivalent to the question, whether the inferences, which can be
obtained from the axioms through specialization and combination
in the previously exemplified sense, lead to a contradiction or not,
if besides are adjoined the familiar logical deduction-modes such as

((a\b) & (a\b}}\b

[(ao. b) & (oo. c)]|[ao. (b & c)].

The compatibility of the axioms can then either be made out
by showing how a peradventure contradiction must show itself as
early as a preceding stage in the development of the theory, or by
making the assumption, that there is a proof, which leads from the
axioms to a definite contradiction, and then demonstrating, that

THE FOUNDATIONS OF LOGIC AND ARITHMETIC. 351

such a proof is not possible, that is to say contains in itself a con-
tradiction. Thus indeed the proof just now sketched for the con-
tradiction-free existence of the infinite amounts also to making out,
that a proof for the equation 6. from the axioms I. — 4. is not pos-
sible.

V. Whenever in what precedes several thought-things, com-
binations, combinations of manifold sort or several arbitraries were
spoken of, a limited number of such things ought always to be
understood.

After the setting up of the definition of the finite number we
are in position to take that mode of expression in its general mean-
ing.

Also the meaning of the "any you please" inference and of
the "differing" of one statement from all statements of a certain
kind is now, on the basis of the definition of the finite number —
corresponding to the idea of complete induction — through a recur-
rent procedure, capable of an exact description.

Thus also is to be conceived the complete carrying through of
the proof just now indicated, that the statement

differs from each statement which results through a finite number
of steps as inference from the axioms I. — 4.: one has, that is, to
consider the proof itself as a mathematical structure, namely a
finite aggregate, whose elements are connected through statements
expressing that the proof leads from I. — 4. to 6., and one has then
to show that such a proof contains a contradiction and therefore
does not in our defined sense exist free from contradiction.

In a way like that in which the existence of the smallest infinite
can be proven, follows the existence of the assemblage of real
numbers: in fact the axioms as I have set them up* for real num-
bers are expressible precisely through such formulas as the axioms
hitherto laid down. As for that axiom which I have called the
axiom of completeness, it expresses that the assemblage of real

* Grundlagen der Geometric, second edition, Leipsic, 1903, pp. 24-26.

352 THE MONIST.

numbers in the sense of the reversible unique referability by ele-
ments contains every other aggregate whose elements likewise ful-
fill the preceding axioms ; thus conceived the axiom of completeness
also becomes a requirement expressible through formulas of the
foregoing structure and the axioms for the assemblage of real
numbers are qualitatively distinguished in no respect from the
axioms necessary for the definition of the whole numbers.

In the perception of this fact lies, as I think, the real refutation
of the conception of the foundations of arithmetic advocated by
L. Kronecker and at the beginning of my lecture designated as
dogmatic.

In like manner is shown, that contradiction- free existence be-
longs to the fundamental concepts of the Cantor theory of aggre-
gates, in particular to the Cantor alefs.

D. HILBERT.

GOTTINGEN.

SHYLOCK IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.

THE STORY OF LABAN VIEWED IN THE LIGHT OF THE CODE

HAMMURABI.

A VERY interesting question concerning the relations of the
famous Hammurabi Code to the Hebrew record has hitherto
been passed over by critical students. The intrinsic interest of the
narrative, when read in the light of the law of the time in that re-
gion, as well as its value as material for critical purposes, suggest
that it should be given careful consideration. For the present paper,
a bare presentation of parallels must answer: critical conclusions
being left to the reader.

The Hebrew traditions declare that their ancestors were Ara-
means. 'An Aramean ready to perish was my father," was the
confession of the devout Hebrew. "Laban the Aramean" is of
Abraham's own kindred. The point of departure, geographically
speaking, is Ur-Casdim. The various theories about the location
of Ur need not be discussed here. The preponderance of opinion
is toward a location in southern Babylonia. We are therefore justi-
fied in examining the early Aramean stage of the Hebrew people
for traces of Babylonian influences. Conversely, should comparison
of the Code of Hammurabi with the patriarchal narratives disclose
in the latter evidences of Babylonian culture, we would be strength-
ened in the view that the site of Ur-Casdim must be sought in Baby-
lonia.

The theory that a primitive common clan law sufficiently ac-
counts for all resemblances between the Babylonian and the patri-
archal law can also be tested. If they are but sister developments

354

THE MONIST.

from a common nomad code, we should not anticipate wide differ-
ences in patriarchal practice in the same generation. But if kins-
men dwelling in different lands are shown to speak and act as
though the laws of their respective homes were widely different,
we may be sure that we have to deal with considerably developed
local laws, instead of mere primitive clan customs.

Hammurabi's own records also warrant our making the pro-
posed examination. "Martu," as Palestine was called, is mentioned
repeatedly in his inscriptions. The precise extent of Babylonian
authority there we do not know. But Harran and Aleppo are men-
tioned by Hammurabi as objects of his special care and attention.
We find that Babylonian supremacy seems complete throughout
the Euphrates valley : and we may expect all important transactions
in that region to be influenced by the Hammurabi Code, while a
stranger from Southern Palestine would probably not be familiar
with the law of the land. Only one of the patriarchal narratives,
that of Jacob and Laban, has its scene laid in the land of Harran.
The sharp practice narrated should then be examined in the light
of Harran law. :$«

In the Code of Hammurabi, much attention is given to the
property rights of women. We are concerned with but one of the
elements of a woman's property in the present case, the tirhatu, or
betrothal present. The groom is expected to bring such at the time
of the formal arrangement of the marriage contracts. The father
of the bride must not appropriate this gift, and must endow his
daughter's marriage, else he puts her in the position of having been
sold as a slave, instead of honorably married.

The bride's possession of the tirhatu is clearly indicated by the
general principle of the code, which compels a wrong-doer to for-
feit to the injured party a sum at least equal to the amount origin-
ally involved in any given business transaction. In the cases where
a wife is wronged by her husband, the equivalent of the original
tirhatu is paid over to the wife herself, not to her father. If the
latter holds the tirhatu, it seems that he does so merely in trust;
to divert it to his own uses would be equivalent to embezzlement.
If the wife be divorced without just cause, the tirhatu is doubled

SHYLOCK IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 355

by the husband and paid over to the wife as penalty for infringe-
ment of the marriage contract.

One naturally asks, with regard to the tirhatu, what were the
poor man's chances for marrying into a wealthy family, or what
he would do if unable to purchase a maid-servant. The code makes
it apparent that some equivalent might be offered by a penniless
suitor. In section 139 we are told, in case of unjust divorce, that if
no tirhatu had been presented by the husband in the beginning,
one mina of silver must be paid to the divorced wife. That is to say,
one mina of silver is named as the equivalent of the least tirhatu
which should have been brought by the penniless suitor.

Now from the wage-scale in the code we learn that the stand-
ard daily wage for a first-class herdsman or agriculturist is 5 SE
of silver per day; skilled artisans being rated slightly lower. As
180 SE make one shekel, and 60 shekels a mina, and, as Prof. Morris
Jastrow has shown (A. J. T., 1898), that the Babylonians observed
a seventh day in some fashion, we readily recognize that one shekel
means six weeks wages and one mina 360 weeks ; or exactly seven
years, at the ordinary Semitic standard of 360 days to the year.
Seven years service, for a day-laborer who is a competent workman,
stands then as the possible alternative for a tirhatu in cash or goods,
if his aspirations are to alliance with one in more fortunate circum-
stances. But what has been pointed out with regard to the bride's
ownership of the tirhatu would indicate that the net proceeds of
such service the bride would consider as constituting her tirhatu;
and appropriation of it by her father she would be prepared to
resent.

In the story of Jacob and Laban, the former, after a month's
residence, proffered seven years service for the hand of Rachel.
Perhaps Laban felt that the minimum amount proffered was derog-
atory to the dignity of his family. Whatever the motives of his
conduct, it appears that Jacob did not know the laws of the land,
and Laban was prepared to take advantage of the fact. He had
the law constructively in favor of his specious excuse. While not
specifically enjoined, it is clearly expected (C. H. 66) that the mar-
riages of the older children shall be arranged first.

356 THE MONIST.

Laban has the further advantage in the fact that no bonds
appear to have been drawn up, specifying which daughter Jacob
desired as his bride. C. H. 128 declares that if a man has betrothed
or married a wife, but has not drawn up the required bonds, that
woman is no wife. In the absence of such documents Jacob could
not have a legal claim to Rachel.

Jacob's reliance upon a mere verbal agreement between kins-
men in a land whose laws made witnesses or bonds essential to the
validity of all important business transactions (C. H., passim) had
brought him a bitter experience. By the end of the second seven
years, however, it is apparent that he knew something of the tech-
nicalities of the law himself, and was prepared to better the instruc-
tion by putting Laban in the position of breaking the law repeatedly.
Two important sections of the code may be quoted here (C. H.
264, 265) :

"If a herdsman, to whom oxen and sheep have been given to
pasture, receives his hire according to agreement, is satisfied (in
that particular), and allows the cattle or sheep to become enfeebled,
or lessens the birth-rate, according to his contracts he shall make
good the birth-rate and the increase."

"If a herdsman, to whom oxen or sheep have been given to
pasture, has been dishonest, or has altered the terms (of his con-
tract) or has sold them, they shall call him to account, and he shall
restore to the owner oxen or sheep tenfold what he had stolen."

These provisions are not intended for the ordinary day laborer,
but for the master-herdsman or contractor. Laban's experience with
Jacob had convinced him that he had a valuable master-herdsman
whom it might be well to keep at his own terms. The sections
quoted indicate the customary character of such agreements. It
is expected that contracts shall stipulate a certain reasonable pro-
portion or percentage of increase. With such a contract, Jacob
would have no opportunity for his revenge. Hence the peculiar
proposition he makes to Laban.

Now if Jacob proposes to alter the terms of his contract, he is
liable for heavy damages ; but he so manipulates matters that Laban
changes the terms himself, ten times over; and Jacob has Laban's

SHYLOCK IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 357

daughters as witnesses to the fact (Gen. xxxi. 6, 7). Again, if
Jacob, under an ordinary contract, diminishes or enfeebles the cattle,
Laban can collect damages from him; but the character of the
agreement leaves Laban no such recourse, and he repeatedly alters
the terms to recover his previous losses.

Meanwhile Laban's daughters have a deep sense of wrong.
No dowry had been given them: the results of Jacob's service had
been appropriated by Laban; and they were in consequence in the
status of maid-servants, who had been sold to a foreigner, contrary
to the provisions of the code (C. H., 280). Or they might consider
themselves as legally in the status of unportioned concubines whose
marriage their father refused to endow, and who must expect their
brothers, after their father's death, to give them their rights (C. H.,
184). But the black looks of their brothers, who are asserting that
Jacob has robbed Laban, warn them that they need not look for
redress in that quarter. At the family council the wives of Jacob
apparently approve his methods, declaring that their father has
treated them as strangers or foreigners, that he has devoured or
wholly alienated all that they rightfully considered their own, and
that he has simply sold his daughters as if they were slaves. Jacob,
in their view, is only helping himself in a case where the law could
not help him, when he plans to get possession of the vast increase
in Laban's cattle, which his service had produced, as their tirhatu.

But there is another contingency, which they apparently con-
sider: Laban's original fraud, with the absence of legal documents,
makes it possible for Laban to take radical action in the case. He
might choose, in the last resort, to take away his daughters by force,
upon the ground that they were not legally married, and so send
Jacob away stripped of everything. As the strained relations make
it clear that the end is nigh, Rachel, the ancient Jessica, cunning
and daring as well as beautiful, plans the final coup.

This may be understood from C. H. 6. We learn that who-

I ever steals the property or household furnishings of a god, shall

be put to death, and whoever receives the stolen goods shall be put

to death. Such property of the god would include not merely

symbols and statuettes, but all kinds of votive or dedicated objects.

358 THE MONIST.

Babylonian Judaism in a later period shows how wide a range of
interpretation could be given the law. It could be made to accord
to property as well as to person the privilege of sanctuary. Unprin-
cipled Jews gave it great abuse. Christ alludes to it in his reference
to "Corban," "dedicated," being made an excuse by unnatural chil-
dren for not using their property to help a needy parent. Perhaps
this originated the. other device of a "gift to Caesar" to forestall
confiscation by some greedy official. Such protection of valuables
may have been the end sought by Micah's wealthy mother, in the
story in Judges. Learning the fact, and of the terrible curses
launched against the thief, the frightened Micah hastened to sur-
render his plunder.

The reader may imagine the frame of mind of Laban when
he learned that Jacob and Rachel had outwitted him, and had a week
the start in the race for the frontier. One may apply, if he will, the
outcry of Shylock as described by Salanio. But in the present case
— perhaps because Jacob has the stronger troop, and because efforts
to recover any property without violence would lead to recrimina-
tions that would not be helpful to his cause, — Laban discovers that
he has religious scruples upon certain points, and will speak neither
good nor bad. His insincerity is shown by his boasting of power
to do hurt to the fugitives, and by his immediate preferment of a
capital charge.

Jacob replies, stating that he had feared forcible action upon
the part of Laban, and later tells him openly that Laban would, if
he dared, strip him of everything. Of the final offense charged
by Laban he knows nothing, but admits its capital character : "With-
whomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live." Legal action
concerning all earlier proceedings Jacob does not fear, as the ab-
sence of documents in the original fraud destroys Laban's oppor-
tunities for appeal to the law. Laban cannot deny the bringing of
a tirhatu- in the form of seven years' service. If he choose to assert
that the marriage is not legally complete, and that he prefers to
bestow his daughter upon some one else, the law would compel him
to refund the tirhatu or proceeds of Jacob's service, and to add to

SHYLOCK IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 359

it an equal sum (C. H., 160, 161). Such course would be out of
the question for such as Laban.

To grasp at once the sudden change of the roles of prosecutor
and prosecuted in the dramatic denouement, it must be remem-
bered that the lex talionis is the fundamental principle of the code,
and every formally preferred charge, if unproven, recoils with the
corresponding penalty upon the head of the accuser. C. H. i de-
clares that if a man charge a capital crime upon any one and fail to
prove it he shall be put to death.

At the end of the search, Jacob suddenly turns upon his accuser,
and in his lofty rage he assumes the role of the magnanimous, as he
demands instant trial, before witnesses. Laban has charged a cap-
ital crime, and boasted of his power to hurt before the whole com-
pany. His charge is not proven and his life is legally forfeit. The
herdsman's contracts between them have been altered repeatedly,
despite the most faithful service upon Jacob's part ; each alteration
is liable to a fine of tenfold the amount involved. Laban's sons have
been charging fraud (Gen. xxxi. i) ; they should prove their al-
legations, or the family may be fined a sum equal to that which
they assert lost. The aggregate fines for the charges made would
bankrupt the family. Jacob goes further. The law does not hold
the shepherd responsible if wild beasts slay his employer's cattle
(C. H., 266). Yet Jacob declares that he voluntarily assumed such
losses at first, and that Laban later required it, contrary to the law.
He then reverts to the original fraud and closes by asserting that
Laban would, if he dared, rob him of everything. Thus the avari-
cious Aramean, very punctilious about small technicalities of the
law when he would get the advantage of his foreign kinsman who
did not know the law of the land, has, without his suspecting it,
been put in the position of breaking the law repeatedly. He is le-
gally bankrupt, his life is forfeit ; his jewelry and sacred equipment
have been stolen by his fleeing daughter; and, despoiled of all
opportunity for legal redress, he is compelled to sue for peace, and
to ask for an agreement that there shall be no effort at prosecution.

In this request for a treaty we may observe another point of
contact with the code. Under its provisions a man could not marry

360 THE MONIST.

two wives unless the first were a chronic invalid. But for Leah's
weak eyes, (perhaps serious abscesses, a common malady of the
eye in the Orient and especially considered in the code, 215-220)
the first fraud of Laban could have permanently closed the way
to Rachel. Neither as wife, maid or concubine could she have come
to Jacob, under the law. Perhaps Laban had never intended that
she should. But the advisability of retaining a skilful master herds-
man would be enough to impel a man like Laban to avail himself
of the very convenient section 148 of the code, using Leah's bad
eyes as a pretext. But at the witness cairn of Gilead the frontier
is near. Beyond the border the code does not apply, and other
social standards prevail. That his daughters may not be mistreated,
and that Jacob shall take no other wives, Laban has recourse to
adjuration.

We may have here one version — perhaps the original — of that
much varied, far traveled popular tale, which the genius of Shake-
speare has immortalized for the English-speaking world in the
"Merchant of Venice." The main elements — the contest of wits
over legal technicalities between an avaricious old man and a young
man of another land, who finally bests the elder man and runs away
with the daughter and the family jewelry, with the dramatic boule-
versement at the trial scene — are all in the patriarchal tale. It should
prove a very interesting problem for the student of comparative
folklore.

A. H. GODBEY.

CHICAGO.

QUALITY AND QUANTITY.1

r I AHE problem of quality and quantity implies two distinct stud-
ies, which we shall combine here for greater convenience
in exposition. The first is of an historical nature and must answer
the question : What is, in the history of philosophy, the exact mean-
ing of the opposition of the concepts of quality and quantity?
or, in other words, what is the original attitude of modern physics
toward the old conception? The second study, of a purely rational
character, must solve the question, What is the psychological mean-
ing of the words quality and quantity, and from a scientific point of
view what is the import of the contrast of two categories so long
admitted to be mutually irreducible? in other words, what must be
thought of the transition from the unextended to the extended? or,
in any case how is it brought about, and what is really the value
of the distinction between intensive and extensive magnitude — the
latter being clear and serving as an adequate symbol to the former
which is as confused as the very depths of being?

Quality and quantity characterize very exactly the two points
of view, from which the human mind has successively regarded
physics during the long history of the progress of that science taken
in its most general sense. In turn each term becomes the cru-
cial test as to the nature of matter: quality is the pivot around
which the old science of physics gravitates ; quantity, the new.
Between these two conceptions has evolved the theory of living be-
ings as well as that of inorganic bodies. It is enough to say that the

1 Translated by Amelia Seraphon.

362 THE MONIST.

problem of the relation of quantity to quality is not lacking in
interest. We will consider here only very general ideas.
These then are the terms of the psychological problem:

1. From the subjective point of view, trying to find quantity
in quality will be looking for the application of the law of number
or measure in the realm of mere intensity ; it will be reducing to
well-known proportions the mobile and intangible depths of sen-
sation ; it will be finding out the connection between the object ex-
citing sensation, and the sensation itself. From this point of view,
however, one particular will always escape us, and that is the purely
emotional and affective in sensation.

2. From the objective point of view, searching for quantity in
quality, will be passing from the subject to the object, by reducing
to distinct and clear formulas the sensations that we interpret as
signs of some object outside of ourselves ; it will be affirming that
we know objects only in relation to the clear ideas we have of them,
and that the reality of the external world is connected with the
evidence of the mathematical formulas to which we reduce them.
This is again transferring the unextended into the extended, and
making general mathematics the condition of all certitude. But
from this point of view also, one thing will always escape us, namely :
to know the very fundamental facts set in equation, and the neces-
sity of this interdependence postulated a priori of reason and real-
ity. Therein lies the great problem of thought.

Sound, color, odor, taste, cold and heat, resistance, weight,
hardness, shape, situation, and movement: in these consists all our
external world, or at least as much of it as can be perceived by a
consciousness in which reflection has had no part. The distinction
between the qualitative and the quantitative point of view that we
establish in things, is not so clear on the whole as it would seem
at first. Common sense, far from seeing a great difference between
the extensive and intensive, makes of them two forms of one and the
same thing, as it were. It immediately looks upon quantity and
quality as notions fusing into the unity of an object of which they
express different modes of existence on a common basis. Thus
quality and quantity imply each other, since all ideas relating to

QUALITY AND QUANTITY. 363

magnitude indicate as many ways of existing, and everything that
serves to determine the nature of a thing is rightly called quality.
Such is the common opinion. We shall see later, on what precon-
ceived idea it rests. Now we shall limit ourselves to stating that
this radical difference which is primarily established between qual-
ity and quantity is not founded on reason. What we first know
are the sensations which we distinguish from what we suppose to
be their causes ; that is to say, we first perceive ourselves and after-
wards that which is not ourselves.

n.

Before going further, let us examine what may fitly be called
the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Does
such a distinction impress itself upon the popular mind ? or is it but
the sublimated result of reflecting thought?

It seems to me that common sense clearly makes this distinc-
tion. As we have said it intreprets all sensations, in so far as they
relate to an external object, as qualities of that object and places
them nearly on the same level. Moreover, the contradiction of
primary and secondary qualities is no longer of any consequence
whatever, since science has shown most emphatically that both were
in the first place, but states of consciousness identical by nature ;
and in the second place, that they were only the different expres-
sions of the action upon us of a certain cause under given con-
ditions, and following a ratio of which one's own self is one of
the terms, and the cause in question which remains to be determined,
the other.

People say, "We know the primary qualities quite clearly; the
secondary but confusedly." This argument in favor of a distinc-
tion had its value when science had not yet shown what could be
expected of it. But now we know how to regard all those sensa-
tions formerly thought to be confused from the fact that they could
not be measured, and qualities such as sound, color, odor, taste; or
such others as weight, resistance, impenetrability, and in general
all sensations which with the exception of extent, shape, and size
were considered secondary (that is to say, confused) are at present

364 THE MONIST.

quite susceptible of being submitted to measurement and therefore
to quantity. This progress in analysis makes sufficiently clear how
slight is the foundation for a distinction uncritically established,
and also how necessary it is to continually verify the content of
certain notions, the frequent use of which blinds us to their sig-
nificance.

in.

But how to escape from sensation? How can we pass from
quality to quantity? Here indeed arises the psychological problem
which interests us.

At this moment I experience a sensation of heat. What is the
meaning of this fact? It means that just now my consciousness
subsumes its present state under a class of past conditions called
heat. Strictly speaking, I have not a sensation of heat in me. My
being is simply in a certain state different from the preceding and
it has the consciousness of this state and of this difference. I try
to find the reason of this sensation. Now as I am near the fire I
conclude that the fire is the cause of my actual condition ; and then
passing from my self to what is not myself, I affirm that the fire
has a property, a quality, that of causing warmth.

It is important to establish the terms of the ratio: on one side,
my own self ; on the other, that which is certainly not my self. Two
terms being present I have the right to establish the relation, and
it is expressed here for me by the sensation of warmth. Have I
perceived by this sensation a quality of the fire? I cannot state
positively that I have ; for a relation is never an expression of the
existence of one of the two terms on which it rests. It is only the
new result derived from a comparison of the two terms, but is
neither the one, nor the other. In the above instance my sensation
of warmth is but the tertium quid, resulting from the fact that my
body is near another body which I call "fire." That is all I can
say about it.

Let us continue the analysis. According to the judgment of
common sense, actual sensation is what puts me into direct and im-
mediate communication with the external world. Practically this

QUALITY AND QUANTITY. 365

belief in the comprehension of external reality is sufficient. I say
that I am actually warm and that this sensation is not the result of
my own will. Now by repeated experiments I have come to know
that fire has the property of causing the feeling which I now ex-
perience. Hence I conclude that fire has one quality (among others,
doubtless) that experience has already revealed to me or will in the
future, namely, that of warming; and that is enough for every-day
use.

But the reasoning of the scholar is quite different. He will
not draw his conclusion simply from self and non-self. He will
not say: "I am warm now because the fire is warm" or "because
there is heat in the fire." How could he really know it since he
perceives but the actual sensation which can only give him what it
implies, namely a state of consciousness for himself who experiences
it, and not a certain quality of the fire, the existence of which he
could only affirm positively by transporting himself momentarily
into the consciousness of the fire, supposing it to have one. So the
philosopher instead of concluding from a psychological state a re-
ality outside of himself — an entity which would explain nothing —
would try instead to lift the veil from the illusion of common sense.
Applying the process of analysis to the actually experienced sensa-
tion, he will there establish a very nice distinction. He will first
of all try to find out what this sensation within himself may be,
and will say, "It is only a state of my own self; it is still my own
self, but different from what it was an instant before." But here
he is only at the philosophical explanation of the popular point of
view ; and if he did not go further with his reasoning, this conscious-
ness of a certain psychological state which has been preceded by
another, and will be followed by an infinite number of others, in
other words, the consciousness of a possible series of psychical states,
would be practically sufficient for him.

But this knowledge pertains only to his own being, and does
not inform him of what is commonly called the external world. He
is led to ask himself what it is he really knows of this state of con-
sciousness. I say that it is a state of my being ; but if I cannot reduce
it to anything simpler, in what way will this knowledge help me

366 THE MONIST.

on with the idea I have of it? And I shall never be able to escape
from the narrow circle in which the actuality of this condition en-
closes me, unless we suppose that spontaneously and without our
being able to explain this psychological mystery, thought lays down
the postulate of otherness, that is to say, something different from
my present state.

Note that there is nothing excessive in the claim of this postu-
late. In fact we treat here the question of the psychological origin
of belief in an external reality, which is found closely combined
with our affirmation of the existence of qualities outside of our-
selves. Now to make this task easier, we have the right to take
into account all that philosophical reflection has created in the ex-
ternal world whether under the name of illusion or of reality. In
short, we cannot neglect all the facts which actually constitute for
us that kind of moral certainty which Descartes mentions. We
have recourse to that well-known process of demonstration which
consists in taking for granted what we are about to demonstrate.
In a word, to give a solid foundation to our thesis on quality and
quantity we take our footing on the notions which we consider
provisionally in the light of purely moral or practical certainties
and of which we shall bring out the rational character afterwards.

So, admitting the postulate of an existence foreign to mine,
and which I suppose to be the cause of certain sensations for me,
am I entitled to say that these sensations are qualities of an object?
No, I simply affirm a relation and still have to deal only with the
question of states of consciousness. In order to have a clear idea
about quality and quantity, our thought must have become conscious
of the objective laws which govern it. "Mere consciousness of my
own existence, if empirically determined," says Kant, "proves the
existence of external objects." It is necessary to understand well
the sense of this theorem. I do not conceive external objects in-
dependently from my thought, but only inasmuch as they are mat-
ter necessary to its activity. My thought cannot become isolated
from its external condition. In order to regard itself as a series
of states of consciousness, it must take hold of something upon which
to record these states. Thus we manage to affirm the existence of

QUALITY AND QUANTITY. 367

an external object which up to the present time was entirely un-
known, and to which we attribute as its own by a sort of illusion,
qualities that are in reality nothing but our own sensations. Here-
with ends the first stage of psychical processes that lead the philos-
opher to establish the terms of the relation between quality and
quantity.

IV.

But reflection is not contented with this still confused point of
view. In ancient times science found these explanations sufficient ; in
all things it searched only for the essence, which it identified with
a certain quality. Aristotle, for instance, isolated qualities, classi-
fied them and thus settled the whole of creation in functions of one
qualitative hierarchy. In the Middle Ages too, men were contented
with such considerations ; scholars spoke only of substantial forms,
natural finalities and haecceity.2

Even the Renaissance, which with its double current of schol-
ars and mathematicians prepared the way for modern philosophy,
clung to the determination of qualities belonging to things, of the
forms in which they express themselves, and of the forces which
they symbolize. There is nothing in that to surprise us. It is diffi-
cult for us, even now, not to interpret our internal states as real
qualities of things. Why then should we wonder at the grosser
illusions on which was wrecked a science which had never engaged
in the study of psychical existence. Descartes's cogjfo was the
signal of a reaction. While to the popular mind the growing number
of experimental discoveries seemed to render more and more legiti-
mate its belief in an external reality, to the philosopher they proved
that this reality depends on ourselves since it is really known to us
only when we have reduced it to a simple idea, especially that of
magnitude or quantity.

The human mind knows only number adequately. By reducing
perceptible things to the quantitative relations pursued by science,
the horizon of thought has widened. Until then, an abyss divided
self from non-self. The mind, having a conception of itself only as

2 From the Latin term, haecceitas, meaning "thisness."

368 THE MONIST.

a mirror on which external objects are reflected, and accepting
sensations as real qualities apart from itself, established on a classi-
fication of these qualities the dualism of reality, self and non-self.
Since Descartes the external world is closely bound to ourselves.
The illusion about quality is denounced ; it is no longer of impor-
tance, but quantity (that is, numerical relation) takes its place.

With the author of Principles of Philosophy, mathematics is
declared to be the symbol of all intelligibility and to reduce the
knowledge of bodies to the laws of quantity is to bring them back
to reason. The mind only grasps fully and clearly that which is
reducible to the terms of ratio. Such is the nature of our thought
that it can see distinctly at a glance only what it creates, so that
the external world is known to it only in so much as it is the re-
flection of its own laws, and above all the work of the initial cate-
gory of quantity from which the principles of mathematics are de-
rived. And if since the mind has not become conscious of its con-
ditions of existence, or in other words, since it has not understood
that it can only think through analytic ideas, quality in itself is
not susceptible to perfect apprehension, it is therefore reducible
to something simpler than itself, and is a confused notion requiring
analysis.

v.

We have seen how it is possible to understand the distinction
between qifality and quantity, and how the mind can pass from
one to the other. It remains to show how the total reduction from
the first to the second is brought about. It is the last stage in the
ascent of the mind towards purely rational knowledge. This last
investigation will throw a new light upon the two preceding stages
of the processes we are trying to follow.

We shall see that just as in mathematics the progress of re
flections consists in exhausting as far as possible the objective, cc
crete matter of ideas, "unceasingly diminishing the part of intuition,
and seeing as little as possible in order to demonstrate better,"3 so

3 Milhaud, Essai sur les conditions et les limites de la certitude logique,
P- 47-

QUALITY AND QUANTITY. 369

here the progress of knowledge will be proportional to the abandon-
ing of the perceptible element, to the predominance of representa-
tion over affection, in short, to the substitution of mathematical
formulas for the purely intensive fact.

Herein lies precisely the object of physics taken in its broadest
sense: to reduce the most diverse phenomena to motion, all science
to mechanics. It is only a question of establishing a unit of measure
for the elements of which the latter disposes, space, time, speed,
form and mass of bodies in order that mathematics may adapt it-
self to it and furnish us with an explanation of facts. "I find," says
Descartes, "that in the ideas about corporeal things one meets with
very little that he can conceive clearly and distinctly, and that is to
know size, or rather extension in length, breadth, and thickness, the
figure that results from limiting that extension, the position that
bodies of different forms hold in relation to each other, and motion
or the change of that relation .... As to other things such as light,
color, odor, taste, heat and cold, and other qualities which come
under the sense of touch, they meet in my thought with so much
obscurity and confusion that I do not know whether they are real
or false."4

The ideal of physics has not changed since that time. The
question for it is still only to submit to analysis our ideas about
qualities and to show that if in ourselves they are sensations, outside
of ourselves they are nothing but different modifications of motion
that may take place within particles of matter. Thus we must con-
ceive the material universe as a "machine in which there is nothing
at all to consider except the figures and movements of its parts,"5
and physics in its highest abstraction is only a web of algebraic
formulas, expressing forms and motions.

Then if, like M. Evellin,6 we consider the world as a system
of forces (according to the views of L'Abbe Moigno) or if like so
many scholars, we study it only from a mechanical point of view,
gravity, weight, mass, density, resistance, impenetrability, and many

*3rd Med. I, 277; Principes IV, 203; III, 518.

6 Principes, IV, 188.

8 Infini et quantite, pp. 60-65.

37O THE MONIST.

other material properties which we transform into entities will be
brought back either to the mutual attraction of dynamic monads,
or to a collection of partial attractions, or to combinations of move-
ments; but whatever the explanation may be, in the last analysis
it will resolve itself into a system of equations. The mechanical
nature of physical phenomena, that is the reduction of quality to
quantity; this is indeed the last word of science.

It would be useless to insist any further on this point; let us
rather investigate the meaning of our knowledge of things, after
we have submitted them to the category of quantity.

VI.

What is a numerical relation if not a product of our thought?
and why is it a product of our thought if not because laws of our
thoughts are such as they are? Affirming the agreement of an ex-
ternal reality with a certain equation, is establishing a postulate of
which nothing can warrant the foundation unless we connect it with
a metaphysical idea, that of the perfect God admitted by Descartes,
for instance. There may be a connection between our thought and
reality; but probable as it may seem to us it is still but uncertain
since in fact we only perceive through our senses, such as they are,
although they might be different and since we reason by the means
of what we call laws of thought such as they are but they also might
be different. This starting-point admitted, the relativity of all
knowledge will follow. We reduce our impressions to particular
mathematical formulas, and simply by means of this reduction of a
confused state to a clear idea, let us say, we manage adequately to
grasp the real.

Adequately indeed, but in relation to our way of knowing. So
that when we think that we are reducing external reality to a mathe-
matical formula, it is nothing but ourselves that we are so reducing
— ourselves rendering objective the product of our thought; our-
selves inasmuch as the organic laws of our thought symbolize them-
selves, express themselves in a form we call equation for instance,
and which is only a result of the laws of these thoughts beginning

QUALITY AND QUANTITY. 371

to act on the occasion of any kind of a sensation the cause of which
is outside of ourselves.

And what may that other thing be? Subjectively (and we are
coming back to our first point of view) a sensation; objectively,
the same sensation entirely transformed through thought, and this
is due to the fact that the category of quantity comes into play. Ob-
jectively and scientifically, the external object is only our sensation
measured in what we suppose to be its cause; it is the intensive
expressed by the extensive. This expression is found moreover in
the question of time and space. Space is the extended, time the
unextended. We can grasp fully only the former and that helps
us to know the latter; and still we get to the knowledge of space
only through time, which to be measured needs a conception of
space.

One of these two terms is certainly primary and doubtless it
is time, since it is in time that we live, while undergoing a state of
consciousness of any kind ; but we are forced to admit that we get
an exact conception of time only when the notion of space is given
us, and also the result of the application of the category of quantity
to particular sensations.

The outcome of all this is that quality is scientifically the ex-
pression of a relation between two terms of which our own self is
one ; objectively, an illusion derived from the habits of our mind but
founded on reason, inasmuch as it is an expression of the relation
established between objects and ourselves ; and subjectively, a sen-
sation whose certainty lies in our own psychical existence.

VII.

We see therefore how unreasonable it is to turn quality into
a category of thought, since it is reducible to that of quantity which
is in reality founded on a necessity of the human mind. Now herein
consists the principal characteristic of the theory of categories.7 They
are not things-in-themselves distinct in some way from thought,
after the manner of the faculties admitted by the Eclectic school.
To admit them as real qualities, would be going back to the system

7 Couturat, L'Infini mathematique, p. 208.

372 THE MONIST.

of explanation by occult powers. They are laws and still this term
seems only accurate in part, for we know to how many interpreta-
tions it is liable. Whichever term we use to designate the fact that
thought has states of existence, it will be impossible to determine
what after all cannot be determined. Indeed we do not seize cat-
egories in the act. We infer them from all this activity of which
we have only been quite conscious from the time when the results
of science began to reveal themselves so considerably. Is not that
the salient point of Kant's philosophy, to place science on a solid
foundation? Having an immediate knowledge only of the succes-
sion of our states of consciousness, we cannot imagine in what way
that wonderful structure science and society to which we all agree
to grant, at least, moral certainty, has been able to build itself on
the fragile basis of our ephemeral sensations. Kant attributes this
to the categories of thought. This world is only my own represen-
tation, but a well-founded representation in the sense that the real-
ity of the harmony of the external world, with the knowledge that
we have of it, is all in the cognizant subject, that is in the forms of
thought. Hence we see that only through induction we can become
conscious of the categories ; that is why we must be careful not to
interpret them as realities, distinct from the sensations to which
they apply, and to limit them to the simple affirmation that our
thought (as well as every other thing) has its conditions of activity,
which we designate by the word category.

To explain mathematically, that is, to reduce to extensive mag-
nitude what we call the qualities of bodies, remains therefore the
essential condition of sure knowledge. But if we may indeed pre-
tend that we comprehend objects only in so far as we reduce them
to the clear and distinct notion of quantity, it is not less exact to
maintain that something will always remain out of the reach of ex-
act science, we mean quality, considered as one of our inner states.
Those qualities which we think belong to objects, are in ourselves;
they are relations. Now being such, it is difficult for us to pretend
that we can reduce them to a formula absolutely exact, for of the
two terms of each relation the most important, the psychological
inner self, escapes any fixed determination. The proof of it is that

QUALITY AND QUANTITY. 373

those qualities which we know only from the intensity of one of
our passing states experience variations according to the tempera-
ment of each individual. Quality subjectively taken always oscil-
lates in the obscure vagueness of a more or less vivid state of con-
sciousness.

The difficulty presented by the absorption of the intensive by
number entitles us to wonder if there is no danger in wishing to
submit by force the originality of our psychical life to the rigor of
an equation. The same process of reduction of the external world
to numerical relations raises the same objection. Do we not muti-
late things by setting them in algebraic formulas?

We shall be content with saying that science does not in any
way pretend to reduce the reality of things to a formula; but it
simply affirms that the mathematical expressions in which it sets
reality are to us the only condition of any perfect intelligibility.
Thought has no knowledge besides the working of its laws. Now
these laws are the principles of mathematics. When the mind sub-
sumes its internal conditions to them it grasps in the operation all
that is thinkable in the external object. That is what M. Couturat
brought out clearly when he wrote:8

"While all perceptible qualities that we draw through abstraction from
the objects of experience lose all distinctness when generalized. .. .and give
place only to vague and confused concepts, the dimensions of concrete objects
thus brought out through abstraction of their perceptible qualities, keep their
primitive determination. That is why natural science becomes exact only
when it treats of physical dimensions and when it turns perceptible qualities
into measurable and calculable qualities. Scientific knowledge could not be
founded on concepts because qualities are essentially heterogeneous and hence
impossible to compare with one another. To take away their original inten-
sity and their own fine distinctions to bring them under one and the same
concept, heaviness or lightness, heat or cold, is indeed destroying them, and
substituting for the concrete object an undecided and colorless image, without
objective or scientific worth. On the other hand science took possession of
nature when it resolved to determine dimensions and their relation towards
each other, because dimensions being essentially homogeneous may be com-
pared, combined, and measured, and without losing their individual precision
they may be classified under a single and universal type of magnitude. After

8 Couturat, L'Infini mathematique , p. 558.

374 THE MONIST.

all, the concept is fatally and irremediably inadequate to the real object.
Magnitude, on the contrary, is certainly not the whole object, but it is all
that may be scientifically known about an object."

VIII.

Thus the problem of quality and quantity concerns at the same
time: psychology, by the fact that it is in ourselves with reference
to our states of consciousness that the question about the value of
the two concepts arises ; the criticism of the mind, inasmuch as it is
important to establish the rational foundation of the transition from
the intensive to the extensive by applying the notions acquired by
experience to the initial category of thought; the logic of sciences,
since we are compelled to found on reason the exact meaning of a
term which plays so important a part in general mathematics ; meta
physics, for it is impossible to do without investigating whether the
two concepts have any relation whatever with fundamental exist-
ence ; finally the history of philosophy, which traces for us the dif
ferent points of view from which the problem of quality and magni-
tude has been successively faced.

To sum it up, quality and quantity are not radically opposed
except in the dominion of science ; for common sense the contradic-
tion does not exist at all. It appears only when the mind, trying to
unravel the general conditions of every existence, makes the dis-
tinction between what is in itself only a tertium quid, resulting from
the relation of things to our own selves, and what we justly cal
existence, which means subject to measurement or in other words
that which can be subsumed under the necessary forms of thought

Quality, scientifically speaking, is a point of view relating to
the exigencies of our body in its relation to external objects; it is
in us the more or less confused feeling of something good or evil
for our organism. Quantity is the irreducible point of view
thought in its effort to reflect and classify the world.

JOHANNES GROS.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF QUALITY.

rTAHE question as to the nature of quality is one of the most im-
•*- portant problems of philosophy. It is, first of all, of practical
importance, for the difference of quality is the most significant fea-
ture of experience and in practical life it is quality not quantity we
want.

The existence of quality is a fact. The question is not whether
or not quality exists, but what it is and how it has to be explained.
Quantity may be very important, but quality is more important, and
all of us have to learn how we have to deal with it in actual life.

Quality may be (and we believe it actually is) different from
quantity by being unstable and contingent upon conditions, while
quantity (in so far as it is equivalent for mass) is constant and
indestructible, but for that reason no one can deny either its actual-
ity or its paramount significance. Every trader knows that good
quality commands a higher price than bad quality, and quantity is
only appreciated if the commodities are of equal quality.

Qualities withdraw themselves from our direct observation.
They seem to be occult entities that reside within things. Moreover,
qualities change. Some goods deteriorate in course of time, and
on the other hand better qualities can be produced from poorer
materials by human labor, be it through chemical combinations,
mechanical mixture, or other manufacturing processes.

There was a time in the development of mankind in which dif-
ferent qualities were attributed to different agencies that had mys-
teriously taken possession of things ; spirits were supposed to enter
or to leave bodies; diseases were explained by obsession and so
exorcism was the natural method of the medical art. With the

376 THE MONIST.

progress of science and the deeper insight into the mechanical
nature of things the animistic conception changed into the meta-
physical and the metaphysical into that of positivism. Scientists
learned to appreciate the methods of weighing and measuring and
they noticed that many differences in qualities could be explained
by a difference of proportion. Thus they fondly imagined that they
could discard quality altogether and have it subsumed under the
category of quantity. No doubt this was possible (at least in a
certain sense) in some cases where differences of mixture produce
different effects, and, since quality is discredited as mystical, the
assertion is made that quality is an illusion and that the old philos-
ophers, among them Aristotle and Kant, had simply blundered by
admitting the idea of quality among the categories.

In this sense M. Gros has written his essay on quality and
quantity, and he proposes to explain the transition of our philo-
sophical conceptions from quality to quantity. Modern science,
he thinks, has disposed of the idea of quality and supplanted it, at
least in theory, by methods of counting; but such is not the case,
for in spite of the proclamation of the demise of Quality, quality will
forever remain the most significant fact of experience, which, if it
were merely for practical purposes, can not be dismissed and will
have to be retained. A closer inspection will show that the existence
of quality is not limited to practical life; it is not a mere illusion
of merchants and grocers which disappears in the light of science.
For theoretical purposes also the categories of quality will have to
be retained as being essentially different from quantity, and this
distinction will remain forever indispensable not only to the men
of practical life but also to the scientist and to the logician.

Incidentally the statement should be made here that there are
some scientists and philosophers who characterize modern science
as mechanical and purely materialistic. It is frequently assumed that
we should dispose of all former philosophies as antiquated and be-
longing to the animistic era of savage life. This kind of modern
science has proved to be a fond illusion of the rationalist movement
which was started in the eighteenth century, for it had to be aban-
doned on a closer acquaintance with the most important problems

'

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF QUALITY. 377

of life. The rationalists of the eighteenth century overlooked en-
tirely the existence of soul. They thought they could explain all
processes by mechanical laws, but they forgot that feeling is not
a motion and so could not be subsumed under the category of
mechanical action. As a result Weber and Fechner introduced the
theory of parallelism which showed that feeling is one side of a
process which accompanies the physical actions of the nervous sys-
tem. Thus they fell back on Spinoza who had been the first to teach
the duality of existence which in a monistic sense he conceived as
one whole, the two sides being sentiency and extension, or idea and
matter, or spirit and body. In this contrast quality had been sub-
sumed under the category of the subjective element, sentiency, and
quantity under its contrast, the objectivity of extended bodies.
Quality began to be suspected on account of its mysterious char-
acter. It was denounced as an illusion together with the notions
of idea, soul, spirit, etc., and its non-existence was maintained.
The absurdity of these theories was obvious, for the theory amounts
to a negation of our own spiritual existence, of our thinking, which
constitutes the very nature of our most essential being. Thus a
reaction has set in and we may say that the modern tendency is no
longer to discard the notions of soul, spirit, quality, etc., but to
comprehend their nature and significance; to understand what they
mean and how they can be explained without resorting to mysti-
cism or a belief in occult phenomena, and this we shall attempt to
do now.

Before we give our brief explanation as to the nature of qual-
ity we must remind our readers of the monistic principles of science
and the philosophy of science. We must be clear as to the nature
of the scientific ideas which we use as instruments of thought and
we must bear in mind that all general notions are abstractions. The
real world is one great totality and the observing thinker describes
certain features of it which he symbolizes by a name that applies
generally. Abstractions denote real and actual qualities of things
but not things-in-themselves. Gravity is not an essence, not an
object, but a certain feature which is observed in all things heavy.
There is no whiteness in itself, but whiteness is a quality which is

3/8 THE MONIST.

observable in all things which we call "white," which possess such
chemical qualities that they reflect the light that shines upon them
so as to produce in our eye a chemical reaction which causes the
sensation called "white." Sentiency or feeling is a quality which
appears in all things sentient. All these general notions and other
abstractions are methodically arranged so as to produce different
hierarchies in which specific ideas are subsumed under general ideas
so as to represent all things, according to rules of logic as genera
and species. It is this method of arrangement which makes it pos-
sible for us to pigeonhole as it were our knowledge of things sys-
tematically and make each notion easily and quickly accessible. It
enables us to know the nature of things and to do the right thing
at the proper time. In fact, comprehension is nothing but an ade
quate description of things and a pigeonholing of each correctl)
under its proper category. Knowledge is a sufficient stock of sue
descriptions and their orderly arrangement in our minds.

As to the categories quality and quantity, we must observe tha
there have been things which could be counted and others the natur
of which could not be established by counting, but was possessec
of features that were describable only in terms referring to specia
experiences. For instance, we can see how many head of cattl
there are in an enclosure, we can tell how many pounds a bag o
salt weighs, we can measure how high a tree or house may be, but w
cannot by measuring or weighing set forth the taste of salt; w
cannot by measuring or weighing explain the nature of a circle
Of course we can measure the size of it, but in order to describ
the figure of it we must draw a circle and show it. No amount o
counting or weighing will explain its curvature or the relation o
the circumference to the center. Thus quality is a thing that stand
in contrast to quantity. It cannot be determined by measuring o
weighing, but is in need of special experiences, and those who use
the same language know exactly what is meant when we speak o
the taste of salt, or the taste of sugar, or the color sensations of red
green, blue, etc.

Some sensations have been reduced to a difference in quantity
for instance: rough or smooth may under circumstances be due to

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF QUALITY. 379

more or less high elevations on the surface. The smoothness of
velvet is due to a fine fibre of its fabric which may be of a definitely
measurable thickness and height. The rougher plush may be simi-
lar in its manufacture, only showing the thread thicker and longer.
Thus we may in certain cases reduce quality to quantitative measure-
ments and say that the feeling of roughness or smoothness depends
upon certain arrangements that are quantitatively determinable ;
but this is not true of quality itself, only of some features of qual-
ity, and assuredly it is not true of all qualities. Some qualities are
due to a difference of configuration. Opaqueness of a piece of coal
and the transparency of a diamond are due to an arrangement of
their atoms, and we have here a difference of quality which cannot
be reduced to a quantitative analysis. It is a difference of quality.
The material of which both bodies consist is the same, but the
arrangement is different and is due to form.

Difference of form is describable but it cannot be determined
by the use of either the yard-stick or the scales. Its nature cannot
be defined by either measuring or weighing.

What is true of the qualities of the diamond and the coal is
true of all other qualities, spiritual as well as corporeal. Nor is it
true that quality is restricted merely to the subjective sphere of
existence. Quality plays also a most significant part in the objective
world of bodily extension, and indeed the difference of psychological
qualities will find its explanation according to the theory of paral-
lelism in the physiological formation of its bodily counterpart.
The difference of red sensation and white sensation can be explained
by a difference of the nervous state of the retina, and thus an insight
into the physical laws of our nervous structure will throw light upon
the psychical process of our soul-life.

Intimately connected with the several problems of quality is the
idea of unity. In fact the two notions, "quality" and "unity," appear
to be inseparable. Every unity is possessed of a quality of its own,
and whenever by combination a new unity is created, we are con-
fronted with a quality which originates not as the product of a
quantitative summation of its elements, but through a characteristic
interaction of parts.

380 THE MONIST.

A clock, a steam-engine, a dynamo, etc. are not quantitative
amounts of metal, but definite configurations of wheels and other
contrivances of machinery which perform a certain kind of work.
In addition to the sum total of the weight of all particles a new
value is established which is of a qualitative nature ; so that in case
the machinery breaks down, although there is no loss in quantity,
that imponderable something which constitutes the nature and use-
fulness of the machine, its quality, is gone.

Every chemical combination is a new thing that acts otherwise
than did its several constituents.

The qualities of salt (NaCl) cannot be explained as the sum of
the qualities of Natrium (Na) and Chlorin (Cl). The taste of salt
is contained in neither of its constituents ; and so all other qualities
of chemicals originate through combination according to the way
in which they are grouped.

When we draw three different straight lines in three divergent
directions and prolong them until they meet, we produce a triangle ;
and a triangle is a new geometrical figure with definite angles, pos-
sessed of a constitution of its own. The nature of a triangle can-
not be deduced from the nature of the several lines; the triangle
is a configuration representing a new unity, possessing qualities
not contained in its constituent parts.

The combination of parts into a higher unity produces effects
which are not a sum of equivalent elements, but introduces a new
factor which is of a qualitative nature.

Quantitatively, the universe remains the same, and in every
process of nature we can trace the same amount of matter before
and after each change. Qualitatively, the universe changes. New
qualities originate and old qualities disappear. There is no increase
in either matter or energy, but there may very well be an increase
of value in quality, or, vice versa, a loss. The effort of life is every-
where directed toward a favorable change of quality so as to trans-
form the materials on hand into goods that will give more susten-
ance of life, greater comfort and better facilities.

And what is the part played by unity in this transformation?

If a number of grains of sand are heaped up in a pile, we have

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF QUALITY. 381

a mere summation of their several qualities ; nothing but an addition
of their weight, mass, etc. But if a number of constituent parts enter
into a compound which forms a higher unit we produce something
new that did not previously exist. A unitary complex is not merely
a summation of its constituent parts ; it contains a new factor which
is not of a quantitative but a qualitative nature, originating through
the co-operation of its parts; and this new factor would not have
been produced by any of its parts alone, but is the result of their
mutual interaction.

The characteristic features thus originated are sometimes most
marvelous in their effects and thoughtful observers of natural phe-
nomena, accordingly, have been overwhelmed with awe and wonder.
The origin of higher unities with their production of new qualities
of most astounding and unheard-of effects, has become the main
source of all mysticism; and, assuredly, the inexhaustible possibil-
ities of new formations are the most fascinating events of life, some-
times as surprising as the tricks of sleight of hand.

Supposing the world to exist of homogeneous material of some
kind whirling about in cosmic space, we find it consolidated in the
alembic of nebulae into hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and other chem-
ical elements, which condense into planetary systems. Every chem-
ical element is not merely the sum total of a certain amount of
world-stuff, but a new combination in which, through peculiar
groupings of its particles, new units of interaction are created that
possess an individuality of their own with qualities that did not
exist in the homogeneous ether. Higher complexes are formed in
more complicated chemical combinations, and inventors are busy
to increase their number by artificial formations. Some chemicals
crystallize. According to their angle of juncture they combine
with substances of the same kind in different geometrical forms of
crystallization. Every crystal forms a new unit, and though its
elements are homogeneous in their chemical makeup, yet the crystal
as a whole is something new which as such did not exist before.

The most important new departure is attained by organization
which produces the phenomena of life. Some of the most unstable
chemicals enter into such a co-operation that they form a constant

382 THE MONIST,

circuit of materials which by constant renewal of its waste products
preserves the original form of the same round of function, and this
process is called metabolism. It is a combination of adaptibility
and permanence; the old form is preserved but constantly modified
by new experiences. We call the new product of this wonderful
interaction of parts vitality, and there are two forms of it; one,
endowed with sentiency, and the other void of it; the former de-
velops into animals, the latter into plants. There is a qualitative
difference between the two, and each is differentiated into higher
and more complicated forms in the course of evolution.

We see that we can not appreciatively study nature or under-
stand the evolution of life without comprehending the significance
of quality. In quality the creativeness of the universe reveals itself,
and in contemplating the increasing efficiency of quality, we are
confronted with the divinity of nature.

Every unitary complex is an individual, and the tendency is
that unitary complexes in their turn will combine into higher uni-
ties. The higher unitary complexes in the domain of life are called
organisms; their parts which in themselves are smaller units de-
pending on the co-operation of the whole, are called organs. Organs
are such intermediary units as could no longer lead a separate in-
dividual existence. Thus they are, in a certain sense, true unitary
complexes, but are never found separate or isolated.

The highest kind of a unitary complex is man, who as such is
called a person. Several persons enter into higher combinations
such as states, churches, societies, corporations, etc., and even their
interrelations coalesce into organized institutions such as language,
habits, laws, forms of government, etc.

Properly speaking, all persons are organs of the social whole;
for it will be seen that the combinations of personal interrelations
are the most important features of human life. If we could cut out
from a person all he owes to society and his social intercourse with
his fellow-men, nothing would be left of his personality but the mere
physiological organism. Our exchange of ideas, our school insti-
tutions, trade, commerce, and even our charities, also the struggle
in our social life, competition, trust formations, labor unions, the

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF QUALITY. 383

antagonism between capital and labor, etc., are due to new combina-
tions in the field of human hopes and ideals. The interrelations
of human society are being constantly readjusted, and the result
is a difference which is not purely quantitative but qualitative.

The problem of unity found a peculiar construction in India
where the unity of the soul was hypostatized into a thing-in-itself
called atman (or "self") that was assumed to be independent of its
parts. The Vedanta affirms, and Buddhism denies, the existence
of an atman. Buddha proclaimed as an essential truth of his doc-
trine that (i) all compounds are transient, (2) that all compounds
are subject to suffering and (3) all compounds are lacking an at-
man, i. e., a self that is independent of its parts. The Vedantic
view leads to mysticism while the Buddhist doctrine takes a bold
stand upon a sober and purely scientific conception.*

There is no need of entering into further details or pointing out
all the applications of the non-existence of the atman, but we must
insist on the paramount importance of the part which unity plays.
Though a unitary compound, be it in the shape of chemical mole-
cules, or organisms, or inventions of machinery, or mathematical
concepts, or ideals, is not a thing-in-itself, though it is not a meta-
physical entity which owns its parts as if they were its properties,
though there is no atman; yet the effects of a unification are real,
and so we say in a certain sense, that things act as if they were
ensouled with atmans.

Atmans are conceived in the Vedanta as eternal and immutable,
not subject to time and space, and the same can be predicated of
the unity of compounds without ascribing to them any mysterious
selfhood of atman-existence. Though unifications must be accom-
plished in time and space, they are possessed of a pre-existence as
potentialities in the womb of eternity. They are the Platonic ideas
which constitute the formative factor of existence. They are not
things-in-themselves but forms-of-themselves. Like pure mathe-

* How difficult the question of unity proves to be can be seen in Plato's
attempt at solving the contradictions of "the one and the many." Concerning
Kant's theory of things-in-themselves see the author's book The Surd of
Metaphysics, pp. 6 ff., and 29 ff.

384 THE MONIST.

matics, they exist in the domain of potentiality, and their reali-
zation, unlike the invention of a fairy tale, has "not been woven
out of the pure fancy of the inventor. Their realization is, properly
speaking, an incarnation or actualization of eternal possibilities.
In the same way the invention of machinery, of the wheel, the
sewing-machine, the steam-engine, the dynamo, the motor, electric
light, etc., are (as indicated by the word) in-ventions, i. e., findings;
they are discoveries; in fact they are revelations of hidden truths;
they existed as much before their invention as did the continent
of America before its discovery either by the Norsemen or by Co-
lumbus. They lay concealed in the unfathomable abyss of the laws
of being and no one knows what wondrous surprises the future
still has in store for us.

Thus we find that the old contrast of quality and quantity is
justified. The old philosophers who distinguished these two cat-
egories cannot be branded as dupes of an illusion, and we would
make a great mistake if we discarded these notions or tried to ob-
literate the idea of quality. In fact far from rendering our insight
into nature clearer it would obscure matters and would involve us
in untold contradictions. On the other hand the suspicion which we
rightly entertain against notions that lead to mysticism has been
disposed of. Quality is by no means an idea which necessarily leads
to occultism. A right conception of the nature of quality, which is
always due to a definite configuration or structure, constituting a
higher unity endowed with new and characteristic features of its
own, not contained in any one of its several parts, shows us that
there is as little mystery in the differences of qualities as there is
in counting, in weighing, and in measuring.

The significance of our solution can hardly be underrated. It
throws light upon all problems of philosophy, including the domains
of psychology and ethics. It is a solution which commends itself by
soberness and justice, — soberness because it disposes of the mys-
terious aspect of quality without denying the remarkable facts that
naturally give rise to mysticism, and justice because we recognize
the truth in the statements of both opponents; on the one hand
those who insist on the significance of quality as a fact of experience

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF QUALITY. 385

which is true though it might smack of occultism, and on the other
hand those who endeavor to reduce all phenomena of experience
to a quantitative analysis in the hope of rendering the universe as
intelligible as any system of mechanics.

There is no use denying the wondrousness of thte facts of ex-
perience after the fashion of the old rationalists, nor is there any
need of seeking refuge in agnosticism. The appearance of new
qualities necessarily seems a miracle to the uninitiate, and even when
we explain these occurrences as the inevitable results of definite
combinations of parts into new unities, the fact remains as strange
as before. On account of it the universe we live in is replete with
illimitable potentialities, a condition which constitutes the main
charm of life.

The nature of our own being — the human soul — stands out
foremost among all the qualities that challenge the curiosity of the
investigator; it is the noblest phenomenon of the universe, and the
deepest problem of science. The qualities that appear in the do-
main of psychology and ethics, constituting the background of re-
ligious life and the history of mankind are the most wonderful facts
— more wonderful than could be invented by any poet or romancer.
We have good reason to assert that all of them are explicable by
science, and yet they remain what they are — wonderful, curiously
wonderful; apparently miraculous, and certainly divinely grand.

Clearness of comprehension does not destroy the worth of
things, and an explanation does not dispose of the facts explained.

EDITOR.

THE SEARCH FOR THE PROPHETS.

'T^HERE is no part of the Old Testament that has for us greater
-*• interest than the prophetic literature. In its impassioned
poetic passages, in its lofty ethical thought and in its profound
interest in life, it is far superior to any other type of literature
which we find in the Hebrew canon. This is but saying that the
greatest minds in Israel expressed themselves as spokesmen or
interpreters of Yahveh in oracular literature, the highest thought
was molded into prophetic forms of expression. For this reason
the question, who wrote this literature ? who were the men who cast
their thought into oracular molds? is an important critical question
to the student of Hebrew life. The question has the greater sig-
nificance, it is worthy of note, because the prophetic literature is
so extensive. One fourth of the Old Testament canon consists
of prophetic books and pieces. Three of these books are individu-
ally equivalent to a duodecimo of one hundred and fifty pages.
This prophetic literature is indeed, for an ancient literature, of
vast dimensions.

It has commonly been supposed that the writing prophets are
known to us through the titles which the various books and pro-
phetic pieces bear and through occasional personal allusions in
these writings. There has been little disposition to question these
titles and allusions ; especially as they have been thought to be sup-
ported, measurably at least, by references to these prophets in the
historical books; but such references are so few and so suspicious
as to their character that the search for the men themselves becomes
to him who prosecutes it very perplexing. Apparently too much
has been taken for granted. It has been assumed that just as we

THE SEARCH FOR THE PROPHETS. 387

know certain Greek tragedies as the work of an ^Eschylus, and
certain as the work of a Sophocles, and certain others as the work
of an Euripides, all prominent in Greek life ; so we know the
various prophetic books and pieces of the Old Testament as the
work of the men whose names they bear, which men indubitably
appear in the historical annals of Israel. Such, as a careful critical
study reveals, is not the case.

The Greek tragic poets find a large place in the life and his-
torical annals of the Greeks of the fifth century before Christ.
^Eschylus is known to have borne an honorable part in keeping
the Persians in the Marshes of Marathon and to have aided later
in the overthrow of Xerxes at Salamis. It has been said of him
that he was honored by his countrymen as a patriot rather than
as a poet, though as such for a generation he was awarded the
prize for superiority in the drama. Sophocles is known to have
led as a youth the chorus which danced and sang around the trophy
in celebration of the battle of Salamis and to have served as a
colleague of Pericles in the Samnian war. The statement of his
biographer that he bore his full share of the civic burdens of his
people and that he served frequently in foreign embassies, has been
regarded an exaggeration. There can, however, be no question
but that as a poet for three decades he was prominently before his
people and kept in close touch with the great movements of his
time. Euripides had less fondness for public life; but his work
as a dramatist kept him before the people for half a century while
his unhappy family life became notorious. Though he in his old
age expatriated himself, it is said that when the news of his death
reached Athens the whole city was thrown into mourning. The
same is not true, so far as we can discover, of the writers of the
Hebrew prophetic literature. They do not appear in the historical
annals of their supposed time.

To him who is interested in the life and thought of Israel there
is no more fascinating diversion than the search for the literary
prophets. It is upon this still-hunt that I purpose to take my
readers. My reasons for so doing will appear later. It is enough
at this point to remark that our interest in the ethical thought of the

388 THE MONIST.

past — and nowhere is there to be found prior to Jesus's time
loftier ethical thought — leads us to desire to place this thought
where it belongs, that we may appreciate it and grasp its signifi-
cance to Israel and to the world. If we date some of these prophets
two or three centuries too early, we must think of them as belaboring
their people with messages which they could not understand, and
which, because they were untimely, accomplished nothing. If, on
the other hand, we date these writings where they belong, we may-
be able to determine what their authors accomplished as the great
ethical teachers of their time. This will remain true though we
may find that these books and pieces were written by men who
belonged to a literary school and did not exercise orally the func-
tions of prophets.

In our search for prophets who are thought to have given
utterance to oracles which were afterwards written out fully, or
in part, we confine our attention to the books of the so-called major
and minor prophets. The supposed authors of these only are known
as literary prophets ; and it is for traces of the literary prophets we
are looking. We cannot forbear noticing at the outset that there
are credible reasons for believing that there were prophets, men
who professed to speak for Yahveh in ancient times among the
early Hebrews, just as among other peoples there were men who
stood forth as prophets and professed to speak for the gods of
their people. Scholars have been wont to regard suspiciously the
words put in the mouth of Nathan in 2 Samuel (see vii. 2 ff. ;
xii. i ff.) ; but we may take the allusions to him in I Kings (i. 8 ff.)
as revealing the existence of an actual prophet who was a member
of David's household. His functions may have been few and simple ;
and he may have been wholly subservient to his royal master, still
it is reasonable to suppose that David had some such man who
professed to be able to ascertain the will of Yahveh and to speak
for him.

There are numerous allusions in the history of the kings of
Judah and Israel to such a class of men. Ahijah the Shilonite who
is said to have encouraged Jeroboam appears to have been such
a one (i Kings xi. 29 ff.) ; though the Deuteronomists spoil the

THE SEARCH FOR THE PROPHETS. 389

simple story told of him by their expansion (see vss. 32 ff.). It is
not unreasonable to suppose that Elijah and Elisha, despite all the
legends which gathered about their names, were men who figured
prominently in certain directions in the life of Israel, though the
latter seems to have been more inclined than the former to play the
part of a courtier. We are told that Jonah, son of Amittai, served
at the court of Jeroboam II, and that he encouraged him in his
imperialistic policy (2 Kings xiv. 25). Such, not to mention others,
were the prophets of Israel and Judah. They were men of action,
rather than men of letters. There is nothing to lead us to suppose
that they ever committed such petty oracles as they uttered to
writing, if, indeed, they were possessed of the art. Our search is not
for such men; but for traces of the men who are named as the
great actors of the prophetic literature, who are said to have uttered
the great oracles which were grouped about their names. Can we
discover in the actual history of those times such men as Amos,
Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah? For these men we are to search.
If they were actual personages, and, especially, were the great
voices and actors of their time, then we should expect to find many
traces of them in the annals of those old days.

We have to confess at the outset that we do find, as, indeed,
we have seen, mention of a certain Jonah ben Amittai ; but we hasten
to remark that this man who figures in the book of Jonah, as
scholars have long since noted, was imaginatively taken by the late
writer of the book as his supposed prophetic actor. Some four or
five hundred years must have separated the age of the prophet
who frequented the court of Jeroboam II from the time when this
delightful little evangel was written. Here, then, we have, ad-
mittedly, a late piece of literature, dated back and fictitiously as-
signed to a prophet of the eighth century. A study of the phe-
nomena which this book presents raises in our minds the question
whether this is the only pseudepigraphic prophetic piece in the Old
Testament. It would be strange if this were the only one, so strange
that we note with interest the fact that other prophetic books have
been found perplexing, that scholars have been wont, for example,
to question whether Malachi was an actual prophet, or whether

39° THE MONIST.

the name was that of the supposititious prophet of the writer who
had given Israel this little book that is universally recognized as
late. It is not matter for wonder that they should have done so,
for the name means "my messenger." It is just such a name as
we may conceive a writer who wished to put his thought in pro-
phetic form might have taken. Of this Malachi there is no trace in
the history. "Obadiah" (servant of Yah, or Yahveh), was a com-
mon name among the Hebrews, but of a prophet of this name the
history gives us no hint. The oracle against Edom which forms
the burden of the little prophetic piece, which is ascribed to him,
might have been published near the Maccabean age; for we know
it was not until the time of Judas that the Edomites, who had been
crowded by the Nabateans up into southern Judea in early exilic
days, were subjugated (i Maccabees v. 3 ff., 65). The oracle is
really an expansion of one which occurs in Jeremiah (xlix. 7 ff.).
As for the name, here again we have just such a name as a late
writer might have taken if he wished to conceive of an oracular
prophet as uttering what he had written.

Nowhere in the historical books do we come upon prophets
known as Nahum and Habakkuk. Nahum (consolation) is a fit
title for the supposed prophet of the impassioned oracle which, Otto
von Happel in his recent handbook thereon concludes, must have
been late, thus agreeing substantially with my unpublished notes
of two or three years ago. There can be no question but that the
allusions to the Assyrians are veiled allusions to the Greeks or the
Syrians, while Nineveh stands for some city of the third or second
century B. C. As surely are the references to the Chaldeans in
Habakkuk veiled allusions to later peoples.

Of a prophet known as "Zephaniah," who appears as the preacher
in the little prophetic book which is said to be his, there is no men-
tion in the history. The manifest attempt to give this supposed
prophet a royal pedigree in the title renders the existence of an
actual prophet of this name all the more doubtful. Of Hosea,
Amos, and Joel there is not the shadow of a trace in the history of
Israel. This is, as scholars have confessed, remarkable. Amos,
as the herdsman of Tekoah, who is thought to have gone north

THE SEARCH FOR THE PROPHETS. 39 1

as a Judean prophet and roared, though ineffectually, at the old
sanctuary of Bethel, has been declared to be "one of the most mar-
velous and incomprehensible figures in the history of the human
mind." So incomprehensible has he seemed that we can understand
why one scholar has been moved to remark that Amos could not
have gone north to the Bethel of which we read in North Israel,
but must have gone rather to some house of God or local shrine
of that name in Judea. Hosea is thought, as the title of the book
named as his intimates, to have labored as a prophet in the north
for half a century, though no trace of him is to be found. The book
of Joel comes before us as a problem quite as perplexing. It is
significant that the book of Amos which is a burden, a message of
doom to Israel and Judah and neighboring peoples, with but a word
of bright promise and assurance at the end thereof which has been
supposed to be an appendix by another hand, has for its title "Amos"
(a burden), a name which occurs nowhere else in the Old Testa-
ment. While "Hosea" and "Joel" are common Israelitish names,
it is easy to see why they may have been taken by late writers as
names of the authors of their prophetic pieces.

More astounding still is the fact that Ezekiel, who is supposed
to have been the great prophet of the early exilian days, is mentioned
nowhere in the Old Testament outside the book which bears this
name. Even in the book the name appears but twice. On the very
reasonable supposition that the book is a late pseudepigraphic work
whose author purposely dated it back several centuries, we may
explain the failure to speak of such a one as Ezekiel in the histor-
ical annals, not otherwise. We are likely to find that Zunc and
Seinecke, as they labored long ago in this field, were the pioneers
of a more intelligent conception than were their opponents.

Micah the Moreshite is named as the prophet of one of the
short prophetic books. Though unmentioned in the history, this
supposed prophet is quoted by name in Jeremiah (xxvi. 18). This
has little evidential value without Jeremiah as a prophet actually
played an important part in the life of Judah in the days of Josiah
and later.

Haggai and Zechariah who are named as the prophets who gave

392 THE MONIST.

utterance to the oracles of two of the minor prophetic books are
mentioned in Ezra (v. I ; vi. 14) ; but if we are to conclude with
one of our modern scholars that Ezra was, as he appears in Hebrew
literature, a creation of the late priestly school and that the book
which bears his name was largely, if not wholly, imaginative, we
must admit that the mention of such prophets in the late literature
counts for little. In some curious ways the book of Ezra and these
two prophetic books are interlinked. It is possible that both Haggai
and proto-Zechariah were written to bolster the fictitious priestly
story of the return and restoration which we find in Ezra. We can
safely assert that in the actual history of Israel no such prophet
appears.

Two prophetic books remain to be considered, two of the longest
and most important to the student of this part of the Old Testament
literature, Jeremiah and Isaiah. There is probably no one of the
literary prophets who has puzzled scholars more than has Jeremiah.
According to the book which bears his name he must have been the
most important personage in the last half century of Judean life
prior to the exile. In the days of Josiah and for several decades
thereafter he is said to have figured prominently as the spokesman
of Yahveh. He is pictured as throwing himself into the civil affairs
of his time with a zeal which knew no abatement and with a
heroism which was unquestioned. Opposed, yet never disheartened,
thwarted and made to suffer terribly, yet never crushed by adver-
sity, he made his influence powerfully felt in a lost cause. Recog-
nizing the inevitableness of the spread of Chaldean power he un-
weariedly endeavored to save from utter ruin the Judean state
and to turn the thoughts of his people to the loftier ethical ideals
for which they might live as dreams of material advancement and
splendor faded. Such he appears to have been, according to the
writings and the oracles incorporated therewith, attributed to him;
yet when we come to search for him in the history of his time we
discover not the slightest trace. This, as Dr. MacCurdy and others
have noted, is marvelous and manifestly inexplicable.

It must of course be admitted that the references to Jeremiah
in the late priestly literature (2 Chron. xxxv. 25; xxxvi. 12, 21, 22;

THE SEARCH FOR THE PROPHETS. 393

Ezra i. I ) are without critical value, as is the mention of the name
in Daniel (ix. 2), a Maccabean book. Such allusions were made
long after, though perhaps not more than a century after, the
writer of Jeremiah had published his work and it had been accepted
as an ancient prophetic book. When we call to mind the fact that
some three or four centuries intervened between the date usually
assigned this supposed prophet and the date of the first priestly
mention of him we can easily see how little warrant we have for
assuming that there was an actual personage of that name in Josiah's
day. We have also to take into account the fact that the writings
promulgated as Jeremiah's are thoroughly saturated with Deute-
ronomy and must in consequence have been written some consider-
able time subsequent thereto. If the Deuteronomists were post-
exilic, as we shall have to conclude they were, then the book of
Jeremiah must be placed somewhere between 40x3 and 250 B. C,
or even later.

In turning to Isaiah, we are interested to notice that much of
the book has long been thought to be the work of an unknown
exilic writer who for convenience is called Deutero-Isaiah ; even
much of what was once thought to belong to the original, or proto-
Isaiah, is now, for reasons which appear to be conclusive, assigned
to the second Isaiah, or some later prophet. To some, as to Canon
Cheyne (see Isaiah, S. B. O. T.}, but little is left of the work of
the first Isaiah, the equivalent of about fourteen chapters in all.
The mention of Isaiah in the titles of chapters i and ii has no
evidential value, for either we must consider the titles late, or must,
and more reasonably, with certain advanced scholars, regard these
chapters as a part of the work of Deutero-Isaiah, and therefore
late. Similarly the mention of Isaiah in xiii. I, the title of an ad-
mittedly late oracle against Babylon is equally valueless. Let no
one remind us of the Assyrian chapters (xxxvi-xxxix) in which
the name of this supposed prophet occurs several times, for these
are undeniably late, as Dr. Cheyne has conclusively shown. To
discredit these chapters as the work of an original Isaiah is to throw
out 2 Kings xix, xx as evidence that there was such a person in the
days of King Hezekiah. The mention of Isaiah in the Berodach-

394 THE MONIST.

baladan episode (2 Kings xx. 12-19; Isa- xxxix) may form a pos-
sible exception, though it is not wholly free from suspicion. It
certainly is somewhat after the character of the accredited stories
of the old prophets of action, unlikely as it is that such a prophet
bore such a suggestive name as "Isaiah."

There remain only the references to the supposed prophet in
chapters vii and xx. The passages in which these allusions to Isaiah
occur are quite different from anything else which is found in this
book, absurd and apparently incredible as they are. In the first pas-
sage we are told that Isaiah at the command of Yahveh went forth
to meet King Ahaz with his son whom he had strangely named
"a remnant shall return," and encouraged him with fitting words.
We are expected to believe that Isaiah, about a century and a half
before Jerusalem fell and two or three centuries before the pious
Zionists began to straggle back from foreign ports, by this won-
drously suggestive symbolic name thus designated his son. The
story is palpably absurd : it puts too great a strain upon our credulity.
And a symbolic name may have been given by a late writer to a
son of his supposed prophet very naturally, for then did he and others
cherish the hope of a return and of a resurrection of the old Hebrew
state, then and not until then.

Quite as incredible is the allusion to Isaiah in chapter xx.
According to this passage Isaiah is said to have gone naked and
barefoot about Jerusalem for three years as a sign and warning
against Egypt, lower and upper (Mizraim and Ethiopia), thus in-
sinuating to his friends and neighbors who were said to be looking to
Egypt for help, that the people of that land were to be led abroad as
captives, and that dependence on them was therefore vain. Some-
thing akin to this, the old prophets were ever doing ; but it is hardly
conceivable that the writer is here describing an actual occurrence.

We are thus forced to conclude that neither in the historical
books nor in this great prophetic book do we come upon convincing
evidence of the existence of such a one as Isaiah. It is significant
that the very name "Isaiah" is symbolic, and is strongly character-
istic of the oracles throughout. It is the salvation or deliverance
of Yahveh which is the theme of the book; and "Isaiah" means

THE SEARCH FOR THE PROPHETS. 395

"salvation or deliverance of Yah, or Yahveh." Here, moreover,
as in the case of other supposed literary prophets the name of the
supposed father of the prophet is of one who appears nowhere in
the history. Besides "Amos" means "strength," or "strong one."
Even if our search in this instance be thought to bring to light an
actual prophet of the olden time we are not to think of him as
having anything to do with the oracles here brought together.
We may regard them as late writings thrust back imaginatively
into the earlier time by their author or authors in a way thoroughly
characteristic of the Hebrews.

We shall have to admit that our search for the literary prophets
of Israel has not brought such men to light. Nowhere do we find
traces of such men. Though they are pictured in their supposed
writings as figuring prominently in the life of Israel from the close
or middle of the eighth century on for five hundred years ; we cannot
in the chronicles of the people put our hands on them: always and
everywhere they elude us. Need we wonder that scholars who have
spent much of their time in this quest in their study of the prophetic
literature should have drawn back amazed and perplexed?

I ask no one to accept my conclusions; but I cannot forbear
saying that I see but one reasonable explanation of this most per-
plexing problem, it is that in common with most of the other Old
Testament literature the prophetic is pseudepigraphic and as such
is late. Such writings must be accounted for. There is in the Old
Testament nothing finer, nothing more uplifting from both the
poetic and ethical point of view than large sections of the prophets.
For good reasons the great men of the post-exilic time chose to
publish anonymously or pseudonymously their prophetic thought.
Taking up the work and following on after the Deuteronomic
school, the school which for convenience we call the prophetic,
chose to work out of sight, giving an air of mystery to their pieces
as they were sent forth; as the publication of Deuteronomy itself
had been compassed about with mystery, as a work attributed to
Moses, the reputed discovery of which in the time of Josiah was
said to have occasioned a great and drastic reformation.

If my findings as to the Deuteronomists are accepted there need

39^ THE MONIST.

be no question as to the prophetic writers that cannot be reason-
ably explained. If we can conceive of pious Zionists as they straggled
back from foreign ports with their nobler conception of Yahveh
and their purer ethics in their endeavor to build up a new Israel
on the ruins of the old, labored as Deuteronomic monotheists, re-
dacting after their peculiar manner the old chronicles of their people
and promulgating Deuteronomy as a recapitulation and enlargement
of the Book of the Covenant, as passing over into the prophetic
school which was further reinforced by other returning Zionists,
we have a conception of the prophetic literature which is most in-
spiring as it is withal most reasonable. Already the discovery of
the fact that Deutero-Isaiah is post-exilic and late, that the burden
of its matchless oracles has to do with the golah, the Jews who
returned from Babylonia and other distant parts, has rendered it
a most fascinating book. A more careful examination of the prophets
reveals the fact that large portions of them are of the same general
character as Deutero-Isaiah, that whenever the golah is mentioned
in the prophets it is with radiant optimism. To think of the pro-
phetic literature as late and to discover how the writers of this liter-
ature turned to the Zionists to whom they undoubtedly themselves
belonged is to find how needless it is to mutilate the prophetic writ-
ings and assign to late writers all portions and fragments which are
hopeful and optimistic.

We cannot of course be sure of the integrity of any one pro-
phetic book ; though we may seriously doubt if it be any such patch-
work as some find such books as Amos and Isaiah to have been.
Still there is nothing inherently incredible in the thought, if these
different books are late, that they are for the most part the work of
men who gave their books an individuality and unity that may be
apparent to us ; while certain of the books may be the work of two
or more writers. In a few instances a prophetic writer may have
produced more than one prophetic piece or may have had a hand in
the composition of two or more of the larger books. There are
chapters of Jeremiah and Ezekiel that may have come from the
hand of the writers of the more optimistic portions of Isaiah. It
is thus that a prophetic school sends forth its work. Once grant

1

THE SEARCH FOR THE PROPHETS. 397

that the prophetic literature of Israel is the pseudepigraphic and
late work of such a school and we have to admit that the question
of the authorship of any individual book or piece is of no particular
moment as it certainly is as much beyond our power to determine
as the authorship of a psalm. It is significant that the titles of so
many of these prophetic books have been regarded by certain of
our great critical scholars as spurious. Taken as they stand they
are supposed to be inexplicable. By looking upon the prophetic
writings, as I have here suggested we must, we may let the titles
stand as the efforts of their late writers to give an imaginative set-
ting for their work in earlier centuries.

EDWARD DAY.
NANTUCKET, MASS.

CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE.

FROM A JAPANESE POINT OF VIEW.

HPHE century which closed a few years ago must be regarded as
-*• an eminently successful period for science, whose influence is
everywhere felt at this beginning of the twentieth century. Japan,
too, which has been following in the wake of European scientific
progress only during the last few decades, could not but feel its
consequences. Men of science have shown their brilliant achieve-
ments in almost every phase of life, and naturally they stand now
before us much elated over their triumphant march. Japanese
education, which had hitherto placed too much importance upon

ethics to the exclusion of scientific study, could no longer hold its

.
ground against this general assault so successfully carried on, and

a reaction soon set in. People ran wildly after things scientific,
applauded the scientific frame of mind, and showed everywhere a
disposition to disregard the old traditions. Recently, however, symp-
toms are becoming more and more recognizable, that point to a
revival of the old spirit. Young men of Japan are beginning to
feel that science does not necessarily satisfy all their moral needs,
and that it is a mistake to attach too much significance to it. But
I am seriously in doubt as to whether this revival really is to be
welcomed at this juncture in the development of our national cul-
ture. By no means do I wish to make light of the ethical culture
which was strenuously pursued by our fathers. The point I wish
to make, is that this is not yet the time to revive ancient tradition
at the sacrifice of the general scientific culture which has but lately

translated by T. Suzuki.

CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 399

started. A universal propagation of the scientific spirit among our
people is still needed, and even more urgently than it was a few
decades ago.

In this connection, I have one or two questions to ask: "Do
science and ethical culture antagonize each other or not? And
further, not only do they perhaps not antagonize, but do they not
actually cooperate with and complement each other?" Broadly
speaking, science aims at discovering and elucidating laws that
govern natural phenomena, while by culture we mean the improve-
ment of our subjective attitude toward the laws thus formulated,
or in short, character building.

When viewed from this standpoint, science and culture must
be said to complement and not to contradict each other. Why,
then, are some people inclined to think otherwise ? The explanation
of this lies in the fact that such thinkers are generally specialists
who, in the heat of enthusiasm over successes achieved in the par-
ticular department of science to which they have devoted their lives,
forget the necessary limitations of their subjects and arrogantly
attack hypotheses and even ignore facts, when both facts and hy-
potheses are beyond the scope of their own study, and, therefore,
can not be included within the bounds of their favorite theories.

The proper object of science is to investigate various laws con-
trolling natural phenomena. For instance, it is a proper subject
of scientific study to find out the laws that govern the phenomena
of mutual attraction between the sun and the earth, or those which
make one element combine with another in various degrees of affin-
ity, or to discover those psychological principles which prompt men
and women to unite themselves in matrimony. Sciences, to use
logical terms, are made to determine some particular propositions,
explaining each natural phenomenon by a certain definite law. They
have no right whatever to overstep this limitation and absolutely
deny or affirm things which do not properly belong to those specific
spheres.

Suppose here is a man whose special study is psychology. He
can investigate the relations that exist between the soul and the
body, between the nervous system and consciousness, and he can

4OO THE MONIST.

assert that particular states of consciousness are accompanied by
or follow from corresponding organic or nervous conditions ; or,
that whenever the brain is affected in a certain way, a certain state
of consciousness may be expected. But he will go beyond his sphere
of study, if he tries to positively decide the problem whether our
consciousness could continue to be active after a dissolution of the
material body. The psychologist, who studies the relation between
the mind and the body, feels naturally disposed to think that with-
out a nervous system mentation would be impossible. But he, as a
scientist, has no right to make, or rather has no positive facts to
support, the unqualified denial of mentation without cerebration.

Let me make a wider application of this scientific attitude and
method. Our wonderful solar system is, as is well known, mathemat-
ically governed by the laws of attraction. But we cannot say by
reason of these laws that there is no God in the universe controlling
its multitudinous phenomena. We are not scientifically justified
in making such a universal negation. In this respect Newton was
quite right. He has scientifically — mathematically — established in
his Principia the laws of gravitation, by which all celestial bodies
attract or repel one another. But the fact did not warrant him in
advancing his logic further, and denying the existence of God. On
the contrary, he said that there probably is a supreme being above
all these natural laws.

Unfortunately, however, a number of scientists both in Europe
and America, dazzled by successes brought about by some special
scientific investigations in their chosen spheres, have sometimes
yielded to the temptation of unscientifically extending their conclu-
sions beyond the limits which they have set for themselves. Thus,
even the principles of ethics and religion have been discussed and
attacked and condemned by the scientists, whose business, strictly
speaking, had nothing to do with those subjects. Rising against
these encroachments, philosophers and men of letters declare that
there are some facts and principles which defy treatment by regular
scientific methods, so called. The sudden revival of mystic roman-
ticism whose waves have also begun rolling over the Japanese sea

CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 4OI

of thought, may be considered as a reactionary movement against
the belief in scientific omnipotence.

Whatever its claim, mystic romanticism has at least one lesson
to teach us. This is its peculiarly inspiring stimulus to our inner
life. According to its doctrine, the human soul is considered to
perform three distinct functions, thinking, feeling, and willing.
Each of them has peculiar needs of its own. Science and philosophy
may satisfy our intellectual demands, but utterly fail to administer
to our emotional needs ; and what mystic romanticism strives after
is to fill this deficiency. As far as it stands above simple mechan-
ical intellectualism it has a unique fascination, which strangely
appeals to man's innate spiritual aspirations. It cannot be regarded
as an abnormal pathological phenomenon of the soul, for a mystic
element is surely to be found in our normal mental activities. Its
only danger is that some weak-minded people are apt to take refuge
in mysticism, thereby excusing themselves for want of thought and
giving a free rein to their unjustifiable subjectivism.

I cannot here enter into any detailed discussion concerning the
recent revival of mysticism in Europe. But we can remark that the
further the progress of various sciences, the more complicated, de-
tailed and specialized they become, and this fact finally tends to
isolate the scientists of one branch from those of every other, con-
fining each within his own narrow department. Therefore, the social
soul, if there really be such a thing, at this beginning of the twentieth
century, must be said to be losing unification and gradually dis-
integrating. In this sense we can say that the present social soul
is pathological. Such men as Helmholtz, Virchow, Huxley, and
Tyndall, are getting rarer every day. They were scientists of a
high order, and at the same time had a great interest in general
social education, and did everything to propagate scientific knowl-
edge among the masses. Mystic romanticism, it seems to me, is
trying to fill the vacancy. Standing against the isolation of over-
specialized sciences, romanticism aims at concretely inspiring the
social soul. It is a sort of humanistic movement. But I doubt
whether this romanticist activity is able to do what was done by
Helmholtz, Huxlev, and other scientists.

4O2 THE MONIST.

One more point I wish to notice; and that is, why mysticism
came to be so widely welcomed by the public. The progress of
science towards the end of the nineteenth century has been so ama-
zingly great that people have been induced to put too much confi-
dence in its possibilities. But as a matter of fact there are a great
many problems still left unsolved by science. This opened the eyes
of some scholars to the limitations of scientific knowledge, while
others have failed to unravel such "miraculous" phenomena as
spiritism, telepathy, etc. Tired of fruitless researches and disap-
pointed at unfulfilled expectations, scholars as well as the general
public began to look for something else to satisfy their inner yearn-
ings. And they happened to think of the long-forgotten mysticism.

After all, what is necessary at the present juncture, is to start
a humanistic movement founded upon scientific ideas, to effect a
coordination among isolated departmental sciences, and to establish
an organic relation between actual life and science.

From the psychological point of view, science belongs to the
domain of intellect, and character means individual subjective life.
Now this being the distinction between character and intellect, in
what relation does one stand to the other? What are the funda-
mental constituents of character? Can character be moulded inde-
pendently of the development of intellect?

Among the many constituents of which character is made up,
the intellect takes a very prominent place. The widening of a man's
intellectual horizon is certainly greatly conducive to the refinement
and consolidation of his character. If, on the other hand, he acts
hastily, from the lack of sufficient knowledge, as dictated by an
impulse of the moment, his character must be said to be standing
on a very unsteady basis. Knowledge, especially well-systematized
scientific knowledge, is surely needed for the building up of char-
acter. '•••:.'• '•'

Generally speaking, we can distinguish two forms of knowledge :
scientific knowledge and religio-philosophical knowledge. By the
former we mean the knowledge that relates to a specified group of
facts. Its practical result is the quickening of will-activity rather
than the refining influence ; it promotes the practicality and definite-

CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 403

ness of conduct rather than its ennoblement. Religio-philosophical
activity, on the other hand, is a synthetic factor. It watches over
the totality of things, it grasps the individual's relation to his entire
environment. It has, therefore, to be distinguished from the faculty
that deals with special laws or a particular mode of activity. Religio-
philosophical knowledge, therefore, elevates character to a higher
plane of activity rather than making it exact and definite, and secures
will-activity on a steady foundation.

These two forms of knowledge, one of which can properly be
called scientific and the other religio-philosophical, thus perform two
different functions in the formation of character. At this stage of
the national development of Japan, which of these kinds of knowl-
edge is more needed, which is more to be developed, than the other ?
It is of course difficult to form a definite opinion about these things ;
but to my mind, one is needed just as much as the other, and both
of them are still in an adolescent stage of development. While we
have to do all we can to further the dissemination of scientific
knowledge, we must not neglect to encourage the cultivation of
religio-philosophical knowledge.

The fact that scientific knowledge can be acquired from with-
out, but religio-philosophical knowledge must be evolved from
within, is readily explained. The former can be obtained without
great difficulty by any fairly-endowed mind either through instruc-
tion or through self -application. To develop the latter, however,
it is necessary to have a strong, comprehensive will, fine sentiment,
steady aspirations, keen insight into life, and various inner experi-
ences. Moral discipline, therefore, is indispensable here. As was
once discussed by Socrates and Plato in ancient times, morality is
not a thing which can be grafted into one's being from without.
Unlike scientific knowledge, it must be created by each individual
from within. It is truly said that every man is his own philosopher.
However wide or however narrow a man's sphere of interest in life,
he must have his own philosophy that comprehends and is in har-
mony with his entire environment. It is the same with a petty
tradesman whose store front does not exceed more than a few yards,
as with a great statesman on whose shoulders rests the fate of em-

404 THE MONIST.

pires. Every man must have a philosophical knowledge comprehen-
sive enough to grasp the whole situation to which he has to adjust
himself. With a successful business man every dollar and cent must
be accounted for, for otherwise he will sooner or later fail. There-
fore, philosophical knowledge has to do with the entirety of things,
whatever their importance and consequence. Its characteristic is
completeness and universality. To the development of character,
this form of knowledge is highly essential, and it would be truer
to say that every man should be a philosopher than to say that every
man is a philosopher.

Some people imagine that philosophy is a dry, tasteless, and
uniteresting affair, having no direct important bearing on practical
life. To illustrate that this popular notion is not justified, let me
say a few words about love. This sentiment is no doubt at first
awakened by some organic impulses, but gradually losing its orig-
inal significance, it becomes spiritualized. For this spiritualization
two things are necessary. One is esthetical association and the other
generalization. Sexual love may start with an individual admiration
of beauty in the other sex, but as the soul expands and elevates it-
self, the sentiment of love grows beyond the pale of individualism
and begins to cover a wider field, finally embracing entire humanity
under its wings. This love, now purely spiritualized, is Platonic.
It is then evident that the two things, association and generalization,
are necessary to enoble and spiritualize a sentiment which was pri-
marily confined to some particular object.

Some philosophers, especially those of the Middle Ages in
Europe, were wont to take into consideration only the element of
generalization in philosophical knowledge. This naturally led the
common people to understand by philosophy anything but what is
interesting and inspiring, while in point of fact philosophy does not
exist independent of human sentiment. But the sentiment becomes
widened through the generalizing process of philosophical specula-
tion, while it retains its original character of concreteness througl
out. Here we have the conception of a universal concrete. Whil
still maintaining its realistic effect, the sentiment moves in unis
with general concepts. To illustrate this, take a dramatic wor

CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 405

or a novel. It is an artistic delineation of concrete facts such as
we observe in our daily life and is not the presentation of an abstract
theory such as we have in Lao-Tze's Tao Teh King or Chwang-
Tze's philosophy. Yet we have in the concrete statement of a novel
or a dramatic production some general truth reflected or suggested.
Every particular incident as it is depicted awakens our associations
with things general and conceptual.

This universal concreteness of a sentiment is essential in the
development of character. People who act only according to im-
pulses of the moment may be innocent enough, but cannot be said
to have any character. The worth of a man's character is betrayed,
however, when his apparently meaningless acts, such as laughing,
smiling, or chatting, reflect some general concepts deeply ingrained
in his being. Sometimes, students disciplining themselves in the
Dhyana practice of Buddhism or in the Taoistic doctrine of Lao-
Tze and Chwang-Tze, may wrongfully interpret the significance of
their master's teachings. They begin to think that the most essen-
tial qualification of a philosopher is absolute transcendentalism or
utter indifference to worldly interests. The truth is, we cannot
escape this earthly entanglement, we must laugh or weep as every
other fellow-being, but we can make our every particular act mean-
ingful and reflect in it some grand universal truths. This philosoph-
ical discipline is essential to culture.

Next comes practical discipline, which means the adjustment
of thought to action. It frequently happens in our daily life that we
are unable to execute what we know we ought to do. It is not that
we are too lazy, but simply that we are not sufficiently disciplined.
The channel between central motives and motor nerves has not
been cleared sufficiently for an idea when awakened to find its unob-
structed course in action.

As the last essential factor of ethical culture, we have to refer
to the strength of will, of which so much is spoken lately in this
country. What is meant by a strong will ? Can the will be strength-
ened by discipline? Is a strong character born and not made?
These are the questions I wish to discuss here. But before doing

406 THE MONIST.

so it is necessary to see what constitutes the will from a psycholog-
ical point of view.

There are among modern psychologists so many conflicting
theories about the nature of the will, that they have not yet come
to any definite settlement, but this is not the place to enter into a
discussion and criticism of those various will-conceptions. Let me
state my own view here and apply it to the practical subject under
consideration.

Several conditions necessary to make up will-activity are: (i)
End-concept; (2) Motive; (3) Adaptation of the peripheral organs ;
(4) Persistency of the motive, which comes from the conjunction
of end-concept and motive ; etc. The first is a simple concept ; the
second is a feeling of uneasiness; the third is the physical action
such as talking, gesturing, or any other mode of adjusting the
muscles to the central motive; the fourth is a continued state of
uneasiness. When the conjunction of the end-concept and the mo-
tive is effected, the latter will persist in the satisfactory adjustment
of the peripheral organs, so long as the feeling of uneasiness is not
eliminated. A thirsty person will not be quieted until he secures
a copious drink of water. If, however, the adjustment of the periph-
eral organs is not up to the expectation and fails to satisfy the inner
needs, there are only two ways between which the individual must
choose. The first is the unyielding persistence of a dissatisfied mo-
tive which insists upon repeatedly trying the adjustment of the
organs, until the result is entirely gratifying to it. The second way
is the disappearance of the dissatisfied motive itself. Not being
able to overcome the difficulties besetting the final adjustment, the
motive yields to them in consequence of its weakness.

For instance, I sometimes take a fancy to play at chess and
try to learn the game. But after a few vain attempts I soon come
to the conclusion that it is not worth my while, and then abandon
it altogether. For in this case my motive is not backed by any
strong desire arising from higher aspirations. But it is not so
with those experts who, spurred by some irresistible impulses, never
relax their efforts to master the art.

Speaking of matters of more serious importance, might there

CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 407

be any artificial method by which the lack of a strong inner impulse
can be remedied? In my opinion, this is done by the cultivation of
the foundation of will which consists in a harmonious blending of
natural inclination and religio-philosophical knowledge. Ethics,
which is still in its primary stage, has not yet given any definite
name to what I call here the foundation of will. Some call it will-
motive and others end-concept. But neither term is quite accurate,
for in our active life it cannot be so analyzed. It may appear to be
one or the other according to our viewpoint, but its real significance
lies not in the analysis, but in the synthesis in which end-concept
and motive-feeling work as one. This synthesis cannot properly
be called the will, for it is the source from which the will derives
its vitality. Scholars have not named this definitely. I sometimes
term it the "foundation of the will," but may it more properly be
called the "nucleus of personality"? It is well known in biology
that the vitality of a cell depends upon its nucleus. When a proto-
zoic cell is cut in two, the nucleus being left entire in one half, this
half continues to grow and heals its wound completely; but the
other half in which there is no nucleus, dies. In a similar fashion,
the nucleus of personality is, on the one hand, an end-concept of
spiritual activities of a man, and, on the other hand, their ground-
motive constituting the vital principle of his personality.

Now, that which is most essential in building up a strong,
noble chaarcter is to nourish this nucleus of personality. When a
man loses his hold on it, he must be said to be spiritually dead.
Nobody is perfect, and we are all liable to err frequently, but these
errors are not to be censured very severely as long as a man is in
possession of a strong, healthy, growing nucleus of personality, for
he is sure to recover from the wounds temporarily inflicted and will
grow perhaps with more energy. As was seen before, the nucleus
must have as its constituent element a comprehensive concept such
as Mencius's Vast Energy (Hao fan chih ch'i}, Christian God,
Buddhist Amitabha, or ethicist's humanity. And at the same time
it must have this universal concept organically coupled with a
healthy, pure sentiment, such as Confucian fellow-feeling (Jen),
Christian love, Buddhist mercy (karuna), or ethicist's philanthropy.

408

THE MONIST.

The man who has these two essentials cooperating in the make-up
of his nucleus of personality, is truly to be called great.

The final issue of our spiritual culture turns on the development
of this moral nucleus. To a certain degree, it is a matter of pre-
disposition or heredity. But by accelerating religio-philosophical
activities in our soul-life, and by having this soul-life coupled with
the noblest sentment, and finally by disciplining oneself in its actuali-
zation, much can be achieved by a fairly-endowed soul.

To conclude, it is science that furnishes us with the necessary
knowledge of dealing with life and things, and makes our conduct
accurate and definite and practical ; and in this respect science does
much toward moral culture. We cannot do very well without it;
science and culture must supplement each other. But as to the
establishment of the central nucleus of personality on a solid foun-
dation, we must look for religio-philosophical activities which are
vigorous and unbiased, while the scientific knowledge which con-
cerns itself with our natural wants and activities may be compared
to the protoplasmic matter that surrounds and feeds the nucleus.

YUJIRO MOTORA.

TOKIO, JAPAN.

THE CONCEPTION OF THE SOUL AND THE

BELIEF IN RESURRECTION AMONG

THE EGYPTIANS.

TT7"HEN students of comparative religion began to collect their
**^ data of the several faiths of primitive peoples, they were
astonished to find that a belief in the immortality of the soul was
all but universal ; and there are many scholars who look upon this
unanimity as a proof that the idea is inborn in man and that this
consensus gentium, so called, is a strong argument in favor of its
truth.

There is a good reason for the prevalence of the belief in im-
mortality, and it is based upon the fact that primitive peoples do
not discriminate between dreams and reality. Dreams are real to
them, and so if their dead appear to them in dreams, they believe
them to be living still.

We must, however, modify our statement, lest we be misunder-
stood. To say "Savages believe in immortality," is, closely con-
sidered, wrong. It is not a "belief" with them, not a religious doc-
trine, nor even a conviction of any moral tenor. To them it is
simply a fact of immediate experience.

Savage psychology has been studied in several parts of the
globe, and the similarity of its essential features among the different
tribes of all continents is remarkable. Indeed, if we consider the
logic of primitive man in face of the facts which confront him, we
have to understand that to his unsophisticated mind the dead
are actually present when they appear in dreams. Savages do not
philosophize on the subject, nor do they formulate a credo. They
see the dead in dreams and visions; they hear their voices; they

4io

THE MONIST.

converse with them; they consult with them. To question their
existence would be as ridiculous to them as to doubt their own
being or the actuality of material bodies. What to later generations
changes to belief is to them knowledge. Doubt is a creation of
incipient civilization, when ideas begin to be "sicklied o'er with the
pale cast of thought."

We know of no time when the Egyptians did not believe in
immortality, and we may assume that the aborigines as well as the
Punt invaders had both some notions of the fate of the soul after
death. Their ideas must have been hazy, for in different districts
different notions seem to have prevailed, many of which survive in
later historical documents. The result is that while all the Egyp-
tians may fairly well be said to have believed in an immortality of

THE KHAIBIT AND THE BA.*

some kind, there are different views, and it is obvious that they
have never been systematized into one consistent formula of the
Egyptian faith.

We may enumerate many different conceptions of souls, all of
which play an important part in the Egyptian religion, and yet we
are not informed whether the Egyptians believed in all of them at
once, or whether some of them are different names for the same
or approximately the same thing, or finally whether we have some-
times to deal with heretical opinions.

The probability is that in some districts the soul was regarded

*From Naville, Das Thebanische Todtenbuch, I, plate CIV. — Maspero.
Dawn of Civilization, p. 108.

THE CONCEPTION OF THE SOUL IN EGYPT.

411

a shadow image, an unsubstantial and idealized shape of the
body; in others it was thought to be a bird, a hawk or a phoenix.
Later on, it became a human-headed hawk, a mysterious being with
wings. Again, it was regarded as a spiritual essence, man's energy
and will-power, obviously the product of philosophical reflection.
Those who had a vague idea of the significance of the heart-beat
looked upon the heart as the seat of the soul, and hence, as the
organ of consciousness. All in all, we have no less than nine con-

THE DEAD MAN AND HIS SOUL, THE BA, ON THE GOOD COW HATHOR.*

ceptions of the soul, which occur side by side in the same papyri
of the great books of Egypt, among which the Book of the Dead
is the most important one.

This mysterious work, the Book of the Dead, is a collection of
prayers or incantations, which the soul must recite on its journey
to the other world. The name has been given it by modern Egyp-
tologists, because the several chapters of it have been discovered

* From Leemans, Monuments Egyptiens, I, III, pi. XII ; Maspero, Dawn
of Civilization, p. 187.

412 THE MONIST.

in sarcophagi wrapt up with the dead, but the title is, to say the
least, highly inappropriate. The best Egyptian name for it would
be, as Budge proposes to translate it, "The Coming Forth by Day/'
meaning thereby that the soul, in its passage through the under-
world, will rise again with renewed life, as the sun, after having
set in the West, comes forth again in all his glory in the East. In
brief, these prayers are intended for the protection of the soul, and if
we had to modernize the name, we ought to call it the "Book of

Resurrection."

* * *

The prehistoric inhabitants of Egypt buried their dead in
crouched positions with knees drawn up to their faces, on mats

THE SARCOPHAGUS OF THE SCRIBE RA.*

The soul (ba) is visiting the body and lays its hands upon the heart
of the mummy.

or gazelle skins. There are instances in which the bodies were
mutilated, with heads severed from the trunks, and in some cases
there are indications of a religious cannibalism. This means that
parts of the flesh had been removed for the purpose of being eaten,
presumably by the heirs in order to symbolize the transference of
the soul of the deceased upon his descendants.

The historical Egyptians, who may have been an entirely new

* From a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. Maspero, Dawn of Civili-
sation, p. 199.

THE CONCEPTION OF THE SOUL IN EGYPT.

413

race (probably a mixture of the descendants of the Punt invaders
with the aborigines), developed a definite system of preserving the
bodies by embalming. The reason for this practice must have lain
in the belief that the fate of the soul after death depended mainly

OSIRIS ON THE FUNERAL COUCH.*

While Anubis prepares the mummy, the soul holds to its nostrils
the scepter and the wind-filled sail, the former symbolizing the
power of renewal, the latter the breath of life.

on the preservation of the body, and the idea of the significance of
the body in connection with the belief in a resurrection has been pre-

* From Rossellini, Monumenti Civili, pi. CXXIV, 2 ; Maspero, Dawn of
Civilization, p. 179.

THE MONIST.

served through the history of Egypt. Indeed it has survived in the
Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh and is still in-
corporated in the confession of faith which is recited each Sunday
from every orthodox altar, Protestant as well as Greek and Roman
Catholic, although actual belief in it is rapidly fading from progres-
sive Christendom.

The ideals that underly the Christian conception of Christ the
Saviour, are not foreign to the ancient Egyptians, but the part
which Christ plays in Christianity is there ascribed to 'several deities.
First of all he is typified in the god Osiris who, too, had to die after

THE SOUL VISITING THE MUMMY.
(From the Papyrus of Ani.)

he had lived on earth as a man and like unto any other man. Hav-
ing died, he was embalmed and guided through the under-world
by his brother-god Anubis. Anubis accordingly played in this
respect the part of Christ not only for Osiris, but for all the dead
of Egypt, and we know that among the early Christian Copts,
Christ was frequently identified with Anubis. He was the Greek
Hermes, who is called by Homer psychopompos, leader of souls.

The idea of the soul visiting the body was dear to the Egyp-
tian, for it is represented again and again in papyri, on wall frescoes,
and illuminated sarcophagi. The soul's visit to the mummy must

THE CONCEPTION OF THE SOUL IN EGYPT.

415

have meant a temporary resuscitation of the dead person, and it
was for his benefit that libations and sacrificial meals were offered at
the tombs.

No doubt the Egyptian soul-conception is typically Egyptian.
We do not find it in the same shape anywhere else on the surface of
the globe. Nevertheless, it is also typically human, and sums up
in a matured and cultured form the soul-conception of savage life
as it is known to us in Africa, Oceania, North America, and in
stray historical records of the primitive people of Europe and Asia.

In spite of the typical peculiarities which confront us in the
Egyptian monuments, Egyptian life and Egyptian religion form a

THE MUMMY AT THE TOMB PROTECTED BY ANUBIS.
(From Wiedemann's Religion of the Ancient Egyptians.)

definite phase characteristic of a certain stage in the development
of mankind. The ingredients which do not go back to the aboriginal
inhabitants are partly Lybian, partly Abyssinian, partly Punt Arabic,
partly Canaanitish, and a mixture of all these elements with a few
incidental ingredients from other countries: Assyria, Phoenicia, and
Greece; but the general result is decidedly human, and that is the
reason why it still attracts and fascinates us. Moreover, Egyptian
views have entered into the life of our present civilization, and in
this sense the Egyptians are as much our spiritual ancestors as are
the Greeks and the Israelites.

Professor Budge in his recent work on The Gods of the Egyp-

4l6 THE MONIST.

tians, characterizes the situation in the Preface (pp. xiv-xvi) as
follows :

"The cult of Osiris, the dead man deified, and the earliest forms of his
Worship, were, no doubt, wholly of African origin; these are certainly the
oldest elements in the religion of the Dynastic Period, and the most per-
sistent, for Osiris maintained his position as the god and judge of the dead
from the Predynastic to the Ptolomaic Period. The Followers of Horus,
who brought a solar religion with them into Egypt from the East, never suc-
ceeded in dislodging Osiris from his exalted position, and his cult survived
undiminished notwithstanding the powerful influence which the priests of Ra,
and the worshipers of Amen, and the votaries of Aten respectively exercised
throughout the country. The heaven of Osiris was believed to exist in a
place where the fields were fertile and well stocked with cattle, and where
meat and drink were abundant; the abodes of the blessed were thought to be
constructed after the model of the comfortable Egyptian homesteads in which
they had lived during life, and the ordinary Egyptian hoped to live in one of
these with his wives and parents. On the other hand, the followers of Ra,
the sun-god, believed in a heaven of a more spiritual character, and their
great hope was to occupy a seat in the boat of the god, and, arrayed in light,
to travel whithersoever he went. They wished to become bright and shining
spirits, and to live upon the celestial meat and drink upon which he lived;
as he was so they hoped to be in every respect. The materialistic heaven of
Osiris appealed to the masses of Egypt, and the heaven where Ra lived to the
priests of Ra and other solar gods, and to royal and aristocratic families, and
to the members of the foreign section of the community who were of Eastern
origin.

The various waves of religious thought and feeling, which swept over
Egypt during the five thousand years of her history which are known to us,
did not seriously disturb the cult of Osiris, for it held out to the people hopes
of resurrection and immortality of a character which no other form of religion
could give. Secure in these hopes the people regarded the various changes
and developments of religious ideas in their country with equanimity and
modifications in the public worship of the gods, provided that the religious
fasts and processions were not interrupted, moved them but little. Kings and
priests from time to time made attempts to absorb the cult of Osiris into re-
ligious systems of a solar character, but they failed, and Osiris, the man-god,
always triumphed, and at the last, when his cult disappeared before the reli-
gion of the Man Christ, the Egyptians who embraced Christianity found that
the moral system of the old cult and that of the new religion were so similar,
and the promises of resurrection and immortality in each so much alike, that
they transferred their allegiance from Osiris to Jesus of Nazareth without

THE CONCEPTION OF THE SOUL IN EGYPT.

417

ANUBIS USHERING THE DEAD INTO THE PRESENCE OF OSIRIS.
(After a colored facsimile of a picture in the Book of the Dead, by Pleyte.)

4i8

THE MONIST.

difficulty. Moreover, Isis and the child Horus were straightway identified
with Mary the Virgin and her Son, and in the apocryphal literature of the
first centuries which followed the evangelization of Egypt, several of the
legends about Isis and her sorrowful wanderings were made to center round
the Mother of Christ. Certain of the attributes of the sister goddesses of
Isis were also ascribed to her, and, like the Goddess Neith of Sals, she was
declared to possess perpetual virginity. Certain of the Egyptian Christian
Fathers gave to the Virgin the title "Theotokos," or "Mother of God," for-
getting, apparently, that it was an exact translation of neter mut, a very old
and common title of Isis."

The body of man was called khat1, and was represented in
hieroglyphics by a dead fish and a perfume bottle, indicating in

FOUR REPRESENTATIONS OF THE SOUL.
(From Lenormant's Histoire de I' Orient, III, 269.)

their combination putrid odor. It was also written in a fuller form,2
which means something subject to decay that can be preserved by
mummification. The hope of the Egyptians for immortality being
closely affiliated to the idea of the restitution of the body, they were
bent on preserving its form, which gradually led to the practice of
mummification.

THE CONCEPTION OF THE SOUL IN EGYPT.

419

The tomb was built to be the residence of the mummy for all
time to come, and was hence called "the eternal house," pa t'etta;
and we must assume that there, at appointed seasons, comparable
to our All Souls' Day, memorial services were held with libations,
food-offering, and incense-burning.3

KING THUTMOSIS II ACCOMPANIED
BY HIS DOUBLE.*

A ROYAL INFANT AND HIS
DOUBLE.f

8 The priest is called ker heb <~:>
who conducts the festivals at the tomb
house.

* <=*5=

j^f which signifies one
pa t'etta, the everlasting

* The king belongs to the XVIIIth dynasty ; his double carries on his
head the king's fea-name. (From Arundale-Bonomi-Birch, Gallery of An-
tiquities from the Br. M., pi. 31. Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 261.)

f This bas-relief in the temple of Luxor represents the birth of Amen-
othes III. From a photograph by Gayet ; Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, 259.

•I

42O

THE MONIST.

The soul is represented in many ways, either as a bird,4 or as
a hawk,3 or, most commonly, as a human-headed hawk," called ba.

The ba represents mainly the functions of consciousness and
is supposed to visit the tomb from time to time, and enter into the
khat, the perishable body. In fact, the purpose of the khat's mum-
mification is simply to make it possible for the soul to enter again
into its body.

Another conception of the soul is the idealized shadow of a
man, called ''the shade," which in hieroglyphics is called khaibit.'

A typical Egyptian view of the soul is a description of the
sentiment that throbs in our breast — that part of the body that lies
between the arms and finds a vivid expression in the use of our
hands. It is called ka and is pictured in hieroglyphics by two out-
stretched arms,8 which is commonly translated "double," for it is
supposed to be the ethereal shape of the man and represents the
personality as a kind of astral body, which is supposed to be in
possession of all attributes of the man to whom it belongs. The
translation "double" is in so far justified as the monuments actually
represent the ka as a second and an additional figure, which, at cer-
tain times and certain places, is deemed necessary to add to the
representation of a man. We see, for instance, the picture of a
new-born prince in which his double, his idealized self, is represented
right behind him, bearing a special name, the so-called £a-name
of the future king.0

The conscience of the man, the organ of his moral life, is sup-
posed to have its seat in the heart, hence ab, the heart, is the name
of the soul in a similar sense as even to-day we would use the word
heart. It is written in hieroglyphics in two ways.10

The spirit of a man is called khu, represented as an ibis,11 the
emblem of Thoth, the scribe of the gods, the mediator between

LJ Coptic

Kill

"The &a-name is indicated by resting on the hieroglyph ka and having
on top the hawk of Hor.

THE CONCEPTION OF THE SOUL IN EGYPT.

421

man and the celestials, the protector of science and the divine incar-
nation of the Word, the Logos — a conception which plays an im-
portant part in Egyptian theology.

Another way of representing the soul is as the vital force,
called sekhem, represented in hieroglyphics by a symbol that seems
to be a fan, representing breath, vitality, and energy.12

Finally, the personality of man is covered by all that appertains
to his name, and thus it is represented in Egyptian by the hiero-
glyph ren™ which means "name."

The body when mummified is called sahu14 and is pictured as

RECEIVING THE BREATH OF LIFE.* THE DEAD MAN AND HIS SOUL.f

an upright mummy.15 When the deceased has been justified be-
fore the judgment throne of Osiris, and when his heart has been
returned to him, he is regarded as having received the benediction
of truth and becomes maa-kheru™ a word which finds an equivalent
in the German selig, and is translated in English, "triumphant,"

J

* From Naville, Das AegypHsche Todtenbuch, I, pi. LXIX. Maspero,
Dawn of Civilization, p. 217.

t From Guieyesse-Lefebure, Le Papyrus de Soutimes, pi. VII. — Maspero,
Dawn of Civilisation, p. 183.

422

THE MONIST.

"justified," "victorious," or "sainted." When the body has been
sainted, it is supposed to be in possession of a spiritual body ; it
becomes luminous and is possessed of an incorruptible sahu, a
transfigured body.

Man's resurrection soul is characterized by the bird bennu,17
the Egyptian phoenix.

The idea of resurrection has always been the main doctrine of
the religious life of Egypt. Here all longings find their satis-

WEIGHING THE HEART.

Anubis adjusts the tongue of the balance the construction of which
is noteworthy. A feather, the emblem of truth, serves him for a
weight. (From the Papyrus of Ani.)

faction, here all interests converge, and here all hopes are centered.
When a mummy is removed in a boat to its eternal resting-place,
a near relation of the deceased stands in the bow of the boat and
calls to the helmsman :

'"Steer to the West, to the land of the justified.
The women of the boat weep much, very much.

THE CONCEPTION OF THE SOUL IN EGYPT. 423

In peace, in peace to the West, thou blessed one, go in peace !

When time has become eternity then shall we see thee again.
For, behold, thou goest away to that country in which all are

equal."18

* * *

All the amulets which were worn by the living or were placed
upon the mummy to accompany the dead to the other world, are in-
tended to serve the purpose of insuring a happy resurrection on the
day when time will become eternity.

The most common symbols used are the ankh™ called also the
"key of life," or crux ansata (the handle cross), or the Egyptian
cross. It means "life" and is seen in the hands of the gods as an
emblem of their divinity.

Another symbol is the tet or ded,20 the backbone of Osiris, a
symbol of stability.

A third symbol is the scepter usr21 meaning "strength," having
on top a hook not unlike the head of the oryx (an animal sacred
to Set) and ending below in a horse-shoe form.

Still another symbol is the feather22 of truth worn by the god-
dess Maat on her head. It means "purity," "faithfulness," and
"justification."

The vulture,23 representing "Mother Isis," was placed on the
neck of the mummy on the day of the funeral.

The uraus (snake),24 like the vulture, is a symbol of Isis, the
two being sometimes combined. The former represents Upper
Egypt and is frequently painted with outstretched wings as hovering
over the king; the latter received particular veneration in the Delta.
Both were also worshiped as special goddesses, the vulture under
the name Nekhbit, the tirceus (snake) under the name Uazit.

The buckle or tie, called thet,25 is one of the commonest amulets
found in the graves. It is commonly made of red jasper, cornelian,
porphery, red glass, red faience, or sycamore wood; and we are

18 Ermann, Life in Ancient Egypt, chapter on "The Dead," pp. 320-321.

1!t HH -20 « 21 ^ 22 f? 23 ^T\. 24 H 25

424 THE MONIST.

told that the red color represents the blood of Isis. It is placed
on the neck of the dead.

The symbol iiefer™ originally representing the heart with the
trachea, but later on interpreted as a lute, means beauty, gladness,
joy, and good luck. It is frequently trebled so as to mean "thrice
blest."

The symbolical eye, utat, made of glazed faience, wood, granite,
haematite, cornelian, lapis lazuli, or precious metals, is shaped either
as the right27 or the left28 eye or both in combination. Sometimes
the right eye is called the sun and the left eye the moon ; and in
other passages the former is explained as the eye of Hor in the
south, meaning the sun in day-time, and the left eye, the eye of
Hor in the north, meaning the moon during the night. The eyes of
Hor are endangered by Set but are known to be always victorious.
Frequently they bear the inscription uza, i.e., "prosperous" or "hale,"
and the souls of the dead were believed to be safe under their pro-
tection.

In the Book of the Dead, the utats, the eyes of Hor, are painted
with wings and human legs.

The crook hek2* signifies the care that the gods take of mortals,
and its use continues in the Christian Church as an emblem of
episcopal responsibility.

Other symbols representing royalty are the white crown of the
south, het^ the red crown of the north, tesher^ and the double
crown32 of both Upper and Lower Egypt, called in later times
pschent.

The scarab, kheper,™ the Egyptian dung-beetle (ateuchus sacer)
was considered with special awe, and it meant generation or regene-
ration, transformation, resurrection, self-creative power, and im-
mortal life.

The Egyptians had observed the scarab roll a little mud ball
and hide it in a safe place. In due time the young beetles came
out of this mysterious ball, and it was assumed that the scarab had
no sex, but that it possessed the power of regenerating itself.

f 27 ^33 28 iS? 29 ^ 30 A

THE CONCEPTION OF THE SOUL IN EGYPT.

425

The heart, ab,s* is also considered as an important amulet, and
Mr. Budge quotes one instance in which a heart amulet bears, on
one side, the inscription of the name of the goddess Neit, a picture
of the bird Bennu, and the legend Nuk ba Khepara, that is, "I am
the soul of life eternal" ; and, on the other side, the chapter on "The
Heart" quoted from the Book of the Dead.

We must mention also the symbol hefnu, which means "a
myriad" and is represented as a frog,35, being the emblem of the
goddess Hekt, a form of Hathor, wife of the god Khnemu. Hekt
also was believed to have a favorable influence upon man's resur-
rection. Even as late as in the Hellenistic period, and still in the
Roman period of Egyptian history, we find frogs on lamps, and in

THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS WITH HEALING IN HIS WINGS.

one instance the frog bears the inscription in Greek, "I am the
resurrection."36

An enumeration of Egyptian symbols would not be complete
without finally mentioning the emblem of the winged disk, which
appears over every temple entrance in Egypt. There is a legend
about its introduction, which relates that Ra Harmakhis, "the Ever-
living Sun-god," was confronted with the enemies of the gods of
the Egyptians, and his son, Hor Behudti, "Hor as a sparrow hawk,"
struck terror among the host of Set, by assuming the overawing
form of a winged disk.

Era EIMI ANACTACIC.

426 THE MONIST.

Thoth, the scribe of the gods, says :

" 'The darter of rays who came forth from Ra, he conquered
the enemies in his form [of a winged sun-disk] ; from this day he
shall be called the Darter of Rays who emergeth from the horizon.'

"Hamarkhis spake unto Thoth:

" 'Set this sun at every place at which I tarry, at the places of
the gods in the South Land, at the places of the gods in the North
Land, [at the places of the gods] in the Underworld, that it may
banish evil from their vicinity.'

"Thoth set this form at every spot, at every place, how many
soever there were, at which any gods or goddesses might be. And
this is the winged sun-disk which is over the sanctuaries of all the
gods and goddesses in Egypt, for their sanctuary is also that of
Horbehudti."37

The winged disk, accordingly, as related in this legend, "ban-
ishes evil from the temples." It is the emblem of rescue from
enemies and of salvation. The same emblem is used in other
Oriental countries, in Arabia, Phoenicia, Syria, and especially in
Babylonia, and we must assume that even the Israelites had no ob-
jection to it. At any rate, we find an allusion to it in the prophet
Malachi (iv. 2), who apparently refers to this emblem of the deity,
when he speaks of Yahveh as the "Sun of righteousness .... with

healing in his wings."

* * *

A prominent feature was the effect which the belief in immor-
tality had on Egyptian morals. The soul could pass easily in its
migrations through the shadows of the under-world if it had not
committed any offense against either the gods or its fellow beings.
It had to know the magic spells that were required to overcome
powers of darkness, and when finally it reached the hall of trutl
the heart of the deceased was weighed in the balance with trutl
which is represented pictorially by a feather.

The deceased makes a negative confession to forty-two judge
of the sins which he has abstained from committing, and we quot

87 Alfred Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 74.

THE CONCEPTION OF THE SOUL IN EGYPT.

427

428 THE MONIST.

the following examples from the Papyrus of Nu (Budge, Egyptian
Ideas of the Future Life, pp. 130-134) :

"I have not done iniquity. — I have not committed theft. — I have not made
light the bushel. — I have not acted deceitfully. — I have not uttered falsehood.
— I have not uttered vile words. — I have not eaten my heart (i.e. lost my
temper and become angry). — I have not pried into matters to make mischief.
— I have not set my mouth in motion against any man. — I have not polluted
myself. — I have not made any man to be afraid. — I have not made myself
deaf unto the words of right and truth. — I have not made another person to
weep. — I have not behaved with insolence. — I have not increased my wealth
except by means of such things as are mine own possessions."

By his justification he becomes identified with Osiris who now
lives in him as a power of salvation. We quote from the Papyrus
of Ani (Book of the Dead, Vol. I, p. 29, Chicago, The Open Court
Publishing Co. ) , where Horus, the son of Isis, the avenger of his
father Osiris, and the saviour of mankind, addresses Osiris Un-
nefer :

"I have come to thee, O Un-nefer, and I have brought unto thee the
Osiris Ani. His heart is [found] righteous, and it hath come forth from the
balance ; it hath not sinned against any god or any goddess. Thoth hath
weighed it according to the decree pronounced unto him by the company of
the gods ; and it is most true and righteous. Grant that cakes and ale may be
given unto him, and let him appear in the presence of the god Osiris ; and let
him be like unto the followers of Horus for ever and for ever."

Such in main outline are the leading facts in the Egyptian
conception of the soul and its life after death, and closely considered
they are but the natural outcome of those views which can be ob-
served in all the prehistoric nations of the world ; but in the case
of Egypt they are reduced to a clear conception, symbolized by ap-
propriate emblems, stated in religious doctrines, systematically ap-
plied to practical life in the shape of moral maxims, and pictured
graphically in religious art.

EDITOR.

MAGIC SQUARES.

A yf AGIC squares are of themselves only mathematical curios,
*•*•*• but they involve principles whose unfolding should lead the
thoughtful mind to a higher conception of the wonderful laws of
symphony and order which govern the science of numbers.

The earliest record of a magic square is found in Chinese
literature dated about A. D. 1125,* but since then this interesting
subject has been more or less studied and developed by mathemati-
cians of all nations.

It is the writer's purpose to present some general and compre-
hensive methods for constructing magic squares which he believes
to be original, and also to briefly review what is commonly known
concerning their construction.

THE GENERAL QUALITIES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF
MAGIC SQUARES.

A magic square consists of a series of numbers arranged in
quadratic form so that the sum of each vertical, horizontal and
corner diagonal column is the same amount. These squares can
be made with either an odd or an even number of cells, but as odd
squares are constructed by methods which differ from those that
govern the formation of even squares, the two classes will be con-
sidered under separate headings.

ODD MAGIC SQUARES.

In these squares it is not only requisite that the sum of all
)lumns shall be the same amount, but also that the sum of any

* See p. 19 of Chinese Philosophy by Dr. Paul Carus.

430

THE MONIST.

two numbers that are geometrically equidistant from the center
number shall equal twice that number. Unless these conditions are
fulfilled, the square cannot be considered perfect.

The square of 3 X 3 shown in Fig. i covers the smallest ag-
gregation of numbers that is capable of magic square arrangement,
and it is also the only possible arrangement of nine different numbers,
relatively to each other, which fulfills the required conditions. It
will be seen that the sum of each of the three vertical, the three
horizontal, and the two corner diagonal columns in this square is
15, making in all eight columns having that total: also that the
sum of any two opposite numbers is 10, which is twice the center
number. It is therefore a perfect square of 3 X 3-

The next largest odd magic square is that of 5 X 5, and there
are a great many different arrangements of twenty-five numbers.

Totals = 15.

'?

24

/

s

/S

z$

f

7

/*

/6

4

6

/J

20

22

so

n

/s>

2/

J

//

/s

2S

2

9

Totals =65.

Fig i.

Fig. 2.

which will show perfect results, each arrangement being the pro-
duction of a different constructive method. Fig. 2. illustrates what
is probably the oldest and best known arrangement of this square.

The sum of each of the five horizontal, the five vertical, and the
two corner diagonal columns is 65, and the sum of any two numbers
which are geometrically equidistant from the center number is 26,
or twice the center number.

In order to intelligently follow the rule used in the construction
of this square it may be conceived that its upper and lower edges
are bent around backwards, and united to form a horizontal cylinder
with the numbers on the outside, the lower line of figures thus
coming next in order to the upper line. It may also be conceived
that the square is bent around backwards in a direction at right

MAGIC SQUARES. 43!

angles to that which was last considered, so that it forms a vertical
cylinder with the extreme right and left hand columns adjacent to
each other.

An understanding of this simple conception will assist the
student to follow the new methods of building odd magic squares
that are to be described, all of these methods being based on a
right or left hand diagonal formation.

Referring to Fig. 2, it will be seen that the square is started
by writing unity in the center cell of the upper row, the consecutive
numbers proceeding diagonally therefrom in a right hand direction.
Using the conception of a horizontal cylinder, 2 will be located in the
lower row, followed by 3 in the next upper cell to the right. Here
the formation of the vertical cylinder being conceived the next upper
square will be where 4 is written, then 5 ; further progress being
here blocked by i which already occupies the next upper cell in
diagonal order.

When a block thus occurs in the regular spacing (which will
be at every fifth number in a 5 X 5 square) the next number must
in this case be written in the cell vertically below the one last filled,
so that 6 is written in the cell below 5, and the right hand diagonal
order is then continued in cells occupied by 7 and 8. Here the
horizontal cylinder is imagined, showing the location of 9, then the
conception of the vertical cylinder will indicate the location of 10;
further regular progression being here once more blocked by 6,
so ii is written under 10 and the diagonal order continued to 15.
A mental picture of the combination of vertical and horizontal cyl-
inders will here show that further diagonal progress is blocked by
n, so 1 6 is written under 15. The vertical cylinder will then indi-
cate the cell in which 17 must be located, and the horizontal cylinder
will show the next cell diagonally upwards to the right to be occu-
pied by 1 8, and so on until the final number 25 is reached and the
square completed.

Fig. 3 illustrates the development of a 7 X 7 square constructed
according to the preceding method, and the student is advised to
follow the sequence of the numbers to impress the rule on his mem-
ory. A variation of the last method is shown in Fig. 4, illustrating

432

THE MONIST

another 7X7 square. In this example I is placed in the next cell
horizontally to the right of the center cell, and the consecutive
numbers proceed diagonally upward therefrom, as before, in a
right hand direction until a block occurs. The next number is then
written in the second cell horizontally to the right of the last cell
filled (instead of the cell below as in previous examples) and the
upward diagonal order is resumed until the next block occurs.

30

3D

4S

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25

38

47

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27

29

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/4

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2S

3*

36

4*

/3

/s

24

33

4Z

44

*

2/

26

32

4/

•*»3

3

/2

22

3./

40

43

2

//

2O

4

29

/2

*7

20

4f

2S

3S

//

36

/9

44

27

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Fig. 5-

Then two cells to the right again, and regular diagonal order c
tinned, and so on until all the cells are filled.

The preceding examples may be again varied by writing
numbers in left hand instead of right hand diagonal sequen
making use of the same spacing of numbers as before when blocks
occur in the regular sequence of construction.

We now come to a series of very interesting methods for
building odd magic squares which involve the use of the knight
move in chess, and it is worthy of note that the squares formed
these methods possess curious characteristics in addition to those

5

-»„,»

MAGIC SQUARES.

433

previously referred to. To chess-players the knight's move will
require no comment, but for those who are not familiar with this
game it may be explained as a move of two squares straight for-
ward in any direction and one square to either right or left.

The magic square of 5 X5 illustrated in Fig. 5 is started by
placing i in the center cell of the upper row, and the knight's
move employed in its construction will be two cells upward and
one cell to the right.

Using the idea of the horizontal cylinder 2 must be written
in the second line from the bottom, as shown, and then 3 in the
second line from the top. Now conceiving a combination of the
horizontal and vertical cylinders, the next move will locate 4 in the
extreme lower left hand corner, and then 5 in the middle row. We
now find that the next move is blocked by one, so 6 is written below
5, and the knight's moves are then continued, and so on until the
last number, 25, is written in the middle cell of the lower line, and
the square is thus completed.

In common with the odd magic squares which were previously
described, it will be found that in this square the sum of each of
the five horizontal, the five perpendicular, and the two corner diag-
onal columns is 65, also that the sum of any two numbers that are
geometrically equidistant from the center is 26, or twice the number

in the center cell, thus filling all the general qualifications of a

c
perfect square.

In addition, however, to these characteristics it will be noted
that each spiral row of figures around the horizontal and vertical
cylinders traced either right handed or left handed also amounts
to 65. In the vertical cylinder, there are five right hand, and five
left hand spirals, two of which form the two corner diagonal col-
umns across the square, leaving eight new combinations. The same
number of combinations will also be found in the horizontal cylin-
der. Counting therefore five horizontal columns, five vertical col-
umns, two corner diagonal columns, and sixteen right and left hand
spiral columns, there will be found in all twenty-eight columns
each of which will sum up to 65, whereas in either of the 5X5

434

THE MONIST.

squares previously considered there will be found only twelve col-
umns that will amount to that number.

This method of construction is subject to a number of variations.
For example, the knight's move may be upwards and to the left
hand instead of to the right, or it may be made downwards and
either to the right or left hand, and also in other directions. There
are in fact eight different ways in which the knight's move may
be started from the center cell in the upper line. Six of these
moves are indicated by figure 2's in different cells of Fig. 6, and
each of these moves if continued in its own direction, varied by
regular breaks as before described, will produce a different but
perfect square. The remaining two possible knight's moves, indi-
cated by cyphers, will not produce perfect squares.

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Fig. 7.

It may here be desirable to explain another method for locating
numbers in their proper cells which some may prefer to that which
involves the conception of the double cylinder. This method con-
sists in constructing parts of auxiliary squares around two or more
sides of the main square, and temporarily writing the numbers in
the cells of these auxiliary squares when their regular placing car-
ries them outside the limits of the main square. The temporary
location of these numbers in the cells of the auxiliary squares will
then indicate into which cells of the main square they must be per-
manently transferred.

Fig. 7 shows a5X5 main square with parts of three auxilh

MAGIC SQUARES.

435

squares, and the main square will be built up in the same way as

Fig. r

Starting with i in the center of the top line, the first knight's
move of two cells upwards and one to the right takes 2 across the
top margin of the main square into the second cell of the second
line from the bottom in one of the auxiliary squares, so 2 must be
transferred to the same relative position in the main square. Start-
ing again from 2 in the main square, the next move places 3 within
the main square, but 4 goes out of it into the lower left hand corner
of an auxiliary square, from which it must be transferred to the
same location in the main square, and so on throughout.

The method last described and also the conception of the double
cylinders may be considered simply as aids to the beginner. With
a little practice the student will be able to select the proper cells in
the square as fast as the figures can be written therein.

Having thus explained certain specific and novel lines of con-
struction, the general principles governing the development of all
odd magic squares by these methods may now be formulated.

1. The center cell in the square must always contain the middle
number of the series of numbers used, i. e., a number which
is equal to one half the sum of the first and last numbers of
the series.

2. No perfect magic square can therefore be started from its
center cell, but it may be started from any cell other than
the center one.

3. With certain specific exceptions which will be referred to
later on, odd magic squares may be constructed by either
right or left hand diagonal sequence, or by a number of so-
called knight's moves, varied in all cases by periodical and
well defined departures from normal spacing.

4. The directions and dimensions of these departures from
normal spacing, or "break moves," as they may be termed,
are governed by the relative spacing of cells occupied by
the first and last numbers of the series, and may be deter-
mined as follows :

436

THE MONIST.

RULE: Place the first number of the series in any desired cell
(excepting the center one) and the last number of the series
in the cell which is geometrically opposite to the cell con-
taining the first number. The relative spacing of these two
cells must then be repeated whenever a block occurs in the
regular progression.

EXAMPLES.

Using a blank square of 5 X 5, i may be written in the middle
cell of the upper line. The geometrically opposite cell to this being
the middle cell in the lower line, 25 must be written therein. I will
therefore be located four cells above in the middle vertical column,
or what is the same thing, and easier to follow, one cell below 25.
When, therefore, a square of 5 X 5 is commenced with the first
number in the middle cell of the upper line, the break move will
always be one cell downwards, irrespective of the method of regular

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Fig. 9.

advance. Fig. 8 shows the break moves in a 5 X 5 square as above
described using a right hand upward diagonal advance.

Again using a blank 5X5 square, i may be written in the cell
immediately to the right of the center cell, bringing 25 into the cell
to the left of the center cell. The break moves in this case will
therefore be two cells to the right of the last cell occupied, irrespec-
tive of the method used for regular advance. Fig. 9 illustrates the
break moves in the above case, when a right hand upward diagonal
advance is used. The positions of these break moves in the square
will naturally vary with the method of advance, but the spacing
the moves themselves will remain unchanged.

MAGIC SQUARES.

NOTE : The foregoing break moves were previously described in
several specific examples (See Figs, i, 2, 3, 4, and 5) and
the student will now observe how they agree with the gen-
eral rule.

Once more using a blank square of 5 X 5, i may be written
in the upper left hand corner and 25 in the lower right hand corner,
i will then occupy a position four cells removed from 25 in a left
hand upward diagonal, or what is the same thing and easier to
follow, the next cell in a right hand downward diagonal. This will
therefore be the break move whenever a block occurs in the regular
spacing. (See Fig. 10.)

As a final example we will write I in the second cell from the
left in the upper line of a 5 X 5 square, which calls for the placing

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Fig. 10.

Fig. ii.

of 25 in the second square from the right in the lower line. The
place relation between 25 and i may then be described by a knight's
move of two cells to the left and one cell downwards, and this must
be the break move whenever a block occurs in the regular spacing.
(See Fig. u.)

As before stated odd magic squares may be commenced in
any cell excepting the center one, and perfect squares may be built
up from such commencements by a great variety of regular moves,
such as right hand diagonal sequence, upwards or downwards, left
hand diagonal sequence upwards or downwards, or a number of
knight's moves in various directions. There are four possible moves
from each cell in diagonal sequence, and eight possible moves from
each cell by the knight's move. The greater number of these moves

438

THE MONIST.

will produce perfect magic squares, but there will be found certain
exceptions which can be shown most readily by diagrams.

Fig. 12 is a 5 X 5 square in which the pointed arrow heads in-
dicate the directions of diagonal sequence by which perfect squares
may be constructed, while the blunt arrow heads show the directions

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of diagonal sequence which will lead to imperfect results. Fig.

13 illustrates the various normal knight's moves which may be
started from each cell and also indicates with pointed and blunt
arrow heads the moves which will lead to perfect or imperfect results.

EXAMPLES OF 5 X 5 MAGIC SQUARES.

Figs. 14, 15, and 16 show three 5X5 squares, each having
i in the upper left hand corner cell and 25 in the lower right hand
corner cell, and being constructed respectively with a right hand

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upward diagonal sequence and right and left hand horizontal
knight's moves, the break move being necessarily the same in each
example. (See Fig. 10.)

MAGIC SQUARES.

Figs. 17, 1 8, 19, and 20 show four 5X5 squares, each having
i in the second cell from the left in the upper line and 25 in the

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Fig. 20.

and upward right and downward left hand knight's moves, and
with similar break moves in each example. (See Fig. n.)

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Figs. 21, 22, and 23 illustrate three 5X5 squares, each having
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440

THE MONIST.

corner, and being built up respectively with upward and downward
right hand normal knight's moves, and a downward right hand
elongated knight's move.

For the sake of simplicity these examples have been shown in
5X5 squares, but the rules will naturally apply to all sizes of odd
magic squares by using the appropriate numbers. The explana-
tions have also been given at some length because they cover gen-
eral and comprehensive methods, a good understanding of which
will make the student a master of the entire subject of odd magic
squares.

It is clear that no special significance can be attached to the
so-called knight's move, per se, as applied to the construction of
magic squares, it being only one of many methods of regular spa-
cing, all of which will produce equivalent results. For example, the
3X3 square shown in Fig. i may be said to be built up by a suc-
cession of abbreviated knight's moves of one cell to the right and
one cell upwards. Squares illustrated in Figs. 2, 3, and 4 are also
constructed by this abbreviated knight's move, but the square illus-
trated in Fig. 5 is built up by the normal knight's move.

Totals = 369.

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It is equally easy to construct squares by means of an elongated
knight's move, say, four cells to the right and one cell upwards
as shown in Fig. 24, or by a move consisting of two cells to the
right and two cells downwards, as shown in Fig. 25, the latter being

MAGIC SQUARES.

equivalent to a right hand downward diagonal sequence wherein
alternate cells are consecutively filled.

There are in fact almost innumerable combinations of moves
by which perfect odd magic squares may be constructed.

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Fig. 25.

The foregoing methods for building odd magic squares by a
continuous process, involving the regular spacing of consecutive
numbers varied by different well defined break moves is believed
to be new and original with the writer, but other methods of con-
struction have been known for many years.

One of the most interesting of these older methods involves
the use of two or more primary squares, the sums of numbers in
similarly located cells of which constitute the correct numbers for
transfer into the corresponding cells of the magic square that is
to be constructed therefrom.

This method has been ascribed primarily to De la Hire but has
been more recently improved by Prof. Scheffler.

It may be simply illustrated by the construction of a few 5X5
squares as examples. Figs. 26 and 27 show two simple primary
squares in which the numbers I to 5 are so arranged that like num-
bers occur once and only once in similarly placed cells in the two
squares; also that pairs of unlike numbers are not repeated in the
same order in any similarly placed cells. Thus, 5 occupies the ex-
treme right hand cell in the lower line of each square, but this com-

442

THE MONIST.

bination does not occur in any of the other cells. So also in Fig. 27
3 occupies the extreme right hand cell in the upper line, and in Fig.
26 this cell contains 5. No other cell, however, in Fig. 27 that
contains 3 corresponds in position with a cell in 26 that contains 5.
Leaving the numbers in Fig. 26 unaltered, the numbers in Fig. 27
must now be changed to their respective key numbers, thus pro-
ducing the key square shown in Fig. 28. By adding the cell num-
bers of the primary square Fig. 26 to the corresponding cell numbers

Prime numbers,...!, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Key numbers, ..... o, 5, 10, 15, 20.

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Fig. 27.

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of the key square Fig. 28, the magic square shown in Fig. 29 is
formed, which is also identical with the one previously given in
Fig. 14.

The simple and direct formation of Fig. 14 may be thus com-
pared with the De la Hire method for arriving at the same result

It is evident that the key square shown in Fig. 28 may be dis
pensed with by mentally substituting the key numbers for the prime

MAGIC SQUARES.

443

numbers given in Fig. 27 when performing the addition, and by
so doing only two primary squares are required to construct the
magic square. The arrangement of the numbers I to 5 in the two
primary squares is obviously open to an immense number of varia-
tions, each of which will result in the formation of a different but
perfect magic square. Any of these squares, however, may be
more readily constructed by the direct methods previously explained.
A few of these variations are given as examples, the key num-
bers remaining unchanged. The key square Fig. 32 is formed
from the primary square Fig. 31, and if the numbers in Fig. 32
are added to those in the primary square Fig. 30, the magic square
given in Fig. 33 will be produced. This square will be found
identical with that shown in Fig. 15.

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Fig. 30 cannot be used as a key square, but if two primary
squares are constructed in which every horizontal and perpendicular
column contains the numbers I to 5 placed according to rules pre-
viously given, and having a different arrangement of numbers in
each primary square, then either of these squares may be made

444

THE MONIST.

the key square, and two different magic squares may be constructed
therefrom, as shown in the next examples.

The magic square shown in Fig. 37 is made by the addition
of numbers in the primary square Fig. 34 to the numbers occupying
similar cells in the key square Fig. 36, the latter being derived
from the primary square Fig. 35. If the key square shown in Fig.
38 is now constructed from the primary square Fig. 34 and the
key numbers therein added to the prime numbers in Fig. 35, the
magic square shown in Fig. 39 is obtained. This square has not
been given before in this treatise, but it may be directly produced by

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Fig. 35-

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Fig. 38.

Fig. 39-

an elongated knight's move consisting of two cells to the right and
two downwards, using the normal knight's move of two cells to the
left and one cell downwards as a break move at every block in the
regular spacing.

It will be observed in all the preceding examples that the
number 3 invariably occupies the center cell in every primary square,
thus bringing 10 in the center of all key squares, and 13 in the
center of magic squares, no other number being admissible in the

MAGIC SQUARES.

center cell of a 5 X 5 magic square. A careful study of these
examples should suffice to make the student familiar with the De la
Hire system for building odd magic squares, and this knowledge
is desirable in order that he may properly appreciate the more
.direct methods which have been described.

Before concluding this branch of the subject, mention may be
made of another method for constructing odd magic squares which
is said to have been originated by Bachet de Mezeriac. The appli-
cation of this method to a 5 X 5 square will suffice for an example.

The numbers I to 25 are written consecutively in diagonal
columns, as shown in Fig. 40, and those numbers which come out-

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Fig. 41.

side the center square are transferred to the empty cells on the
opposite sides of the latter without changing their order. The re-
sult will be the magic square of 5 X 5 shown in Fig. 41. It will
be seen that the arrangement of numbers in this magic square is
similar to that in the J7 X 7 square shown in Fig. 4, which was
built by writing the numbers I to 49 consecutively according to
rule. The 5X5 square shown in Fig. 41 may also be written out
directly by the same rule without any preliminary or additional work.

EVEN MAGIC SQUARES.

In perfect squares of this class it is necessary that the sum of
each column shall be the same amount, and also that the sum of

446

THE MONIST.

any two numbers that are geometrically equidistant from the center
of the square shall equal the sum of the first and last numbers of
the series.

The numbers in the two corner diagonal columns in even magic
squares may be determined by writing the numbers of the series in
arithmetical order in horizontal columns, beginning with the first
number in the left hand cell of the upper line and writing line after
line as in a book, ending with the last number in the right hand cell
of the lower line. The numbers then found in the two diagonal
columns will be in magic square order, but the position of the other
numbers must generally be changed.

The smallest even magic square that can be built is that of
4X4, and one of its forms is shown in Fig. 42. It will be seen

Fig. 42.

Fig. 43-

that the sum of each of the four horizontal, the four vertical, and
the two corner diagonal columns in this square is 34, making in all
ten columns having that total; also that the sum of any two geo-
metrically opposite numbers is 17, which is the sum of the first and
last numbers of the series. It is therefore a perfect square of 4 X 4-
The first step in the construction of this square is shown in
Fig. 43, in which only the two corner diagonal columns, which are
written in heavy figures, have the correct summation. The numbers
in these two columns must therefore be left as they are, but the loca-
tion of all the other numbers, which are written in light figures, must
be changed. A simple method for effecting this change consists in
substituting for each number the complement between it and 17.
Thus, the complement between 2 and 17 is 15, so 15 must be written
in the place of 2, and so on throughout. All of the light figure

MAGIC SQUARES.

447

numbers being thus changed, the result will be the perfect magic
square shown in Fig 42.

The same relative arrangement of figures may be attained by
leaving the light figure numbers in their original positions as shown
in Fig. 43, and changing the heavy figure numbers in the two
corner diagonal columns to their respective complements with 17.
It will be seen that this is only a reversal of the order of the figures

Fig. 44.

Fig. 45-

in the two corner diagonal columns, and the resulting magic square
which is shown in Fig. 44 is simply an inversion of Fig. 42.

Fig. 45 is a geometrical diagram of the numbers in Fig. 42,
and it indicates a regular law in their arrangement, which also holds
good in many larger even squares, as will be seen later on.

There are many other arrangements of sixteen numbers which
will fulfil the required conditions but the examples given will suffice
to illustrate the principles of this square.

24

JS

ZS

/f

2?

22.

/0

J2

29

7

A6

/

Z

J

&

s

6

7

S

?

Sff

//

'X.

/i

/«

/s

/6

'7

/s

/9

10

2/

22

2J

2*

2J~

26

*7

it

29

Jf

Af

J2

JJ

Ju

3f

36

Fig. 46.

Fig. 47-

The next even magic square is that of 6 X 6, and one of its
many variations is shown in Fig. 46. An analysis of this square
with the aid of geometrical diagrams will point the way not only

448

THE MONIST.

to its own reconstruction but also to an easy method for building
6X6 squares in general.

Fig. 47 shows a 6 X 6 square in which all the numbers from
i to 36 are written in arithmetical sequence, and the twelve numbers
in the two corner diagonal columns will be found in magic square
order, all other numbers requiring rearrangement. Leaving there-

/

$3

s*

J3

32

A

AO

S

28

27

//

if

24

23

/J

/<*

za

/O

/s

'7

Z/

2Z

/<<

/j

/2

26

/o •

S

20

7

At

.f

4

J

z

36

Fig. 48.

fore the numbers in the diagonal columns unchanged, the next step
will be to write in the places of the other numbers their complements
with 37, making the square shown in Fig. 48. In this square
twenty-four numbers (written in heavy figures) out of the total of

•ffh;

:x

J U

"X IJJ

-<kJ

40^^

Fig. 49.

thirty-six numbers, will be found in magic square order, twelve
numbers (written in light figures) being still incorrectly located.
Finally, the respective positions of these twelve numbers being re-
versed in pairs, the magic square given in Fig. 46 will be produced.
Fig. 50 shows the geometrical diagrams of this square, A
being a diagram of the first and sixth lines, B of the second and
fifth lines, and C of the third and fourth lines. The striking ir-

MAGIC SQUARES.

449

regularity of these diagrams points to the imperfection of the
square which they represent, in which, although the sum of each
of the two corner diagonal, the six horizontal, and the six perpendic-
ular columns is in, yet only in the two diagonal columns does the
sum of any two numbers which occupy geometrically opposite cells,
amount to 37, or the sum of the first and last numbers of the series.
Owing to their pronounced irregularities, these diagrams convey
but little meaning, and in order to analyze their value for further
constructive work it will be necessary to go a step backwards and
make diagrams of the intermediate square Fig. 48. These diagrams
are shown in Fig. 49, and the twelve numbers therein which must
be transposed (as already referred to) are marked by small circles
around dots, each pair of numbers to be transposed in position

Fig. 50.

being connected by a dotted line. The numbers in the two corner
diagonal columns which were permanently located from the be-
ginning are marked with small circles.

We have here correct geometrical figures with definite and well
defined irregularities. The series of geometrical figures shown in
A, B, and C remain unchanged in shape for all variations of 6 X 6
squares, but by modifying the irregularities we may readily obtain
the data for building a large number of different 6X6 squares,
all showing, however, the same general characteristics as Fig. 46.

A series of these diagrams, with some modifications of their
irregularities, is given in Fig. 51, and in order to build a variety
of 6 X 6 magic squares therefrom it is only necessary to select three
diagrams in the order A, B, and C, which have each a different form

450

THE MONIST.

of irregularity, and after numbering them in arithmetical sequence
from i to 36, as shown in Fig. 49, copy the numbers in diagrammatic
order into the cells of a 6 X 6 square.

It must be remembered that the cells in the corner diagonal
columns of even magic squares may be correctly filled by writing

O^ ^O G^ ^© &^^^Q Cf^^^Q

/t

Fig. 51 (First Part).

the numbers in arithmetical order according to the rule previously
given, so in beginning any new even square it will be found helpful
to first write the numbers in these columns, and they will then serve
as guides in the further development of the square.
,, - Taking for example the 6X6 magic square shown in Fig. 46,

MAGIC SQUARES.

451

it will be seen from Fig. 49 that it is constructed from the diagrams
marked I — 9 and 17 in Fig. 51. Comparing the first line of Fig. 46
with diagram A, Fig. 49, the sequence of numbers is i, — 35, — 34
in unbroken order; then the diagram shows that 33 and 3 must be
transposed, so 3 is written next (instead of 33) then 32 and 6 in

6

7

X X X X

X)

Fig. 51 (Second Part).

unbroken order. In the last line of this square (still using diagram
A) 31 comes first, then, seeing that 5 and 2 must be transposed,
2 is written instead of 5 ; then 4 ; then as 3 and 33 must be trans-
posed, 33 is written instead of 3, 5 instead of 2, and the line is
finished with 36. Diagram B gives the development of the second

452

THE MONIST.

and fifth lines of the square in the same manner, and diagram C
the development of the third and fourth lines, thus completing the
square.

The annexed table shows 128 changes which may be rung on
the twenty-four diagrams shown in Figure 51, each combination
giving a different 6X6 square, and many others might be added
to the list.

TABLE SHOWING 128 CHANGES WHICH MAY BE RUNG ON
THE TWENTY- FOUR DIAGRAMS IN FIG. 51.

C

A B

I, 2,

3 or 4

9

" "

« «

10

« a

« «

ii

« «

« «

12

5, 6,

7 or 8

T3

« «

« «

H

" "

« «

15

" "

« «

16

17, 18, 19 or 20=16 changes

« _ ./: n

tt _ f: «

it «

(i « «
« « tt

21, 22, 23 or 24=16

Total changes = 128

EXAMPLES.

/I

J/

'7

23

26

33

/6

29

2S

/S

/S

—
7

J/

IS

26

AS

Z8

/S

2/

/O

/6

'7

/S

/J

Square derived from dia-
grams 2, 10, and 18.

Square derived from dia-
grams 8, 13, and 22.

The next size of even magic square is that of 8 X 8, and instead
of presenting one of these squares ready made and analyzing it,
we will now use the information which has been offered by previous
examples in the construction of a new square of this size.

Referring to Fig. 45, the regular geometrical diagrams of the
4X4 square naturally suggest that an expansion of the same may
be utilized to construct an 8 X 8 square. This expanded diagram

MAGIC SQUARES.

453

is accordingly shown in Fig. 52, and in Fig. 53 we have the magic
square that is produced by copying the numbers in diagrammatic
order.

As might be anticipated, this square is perfect in all its char-
acteristics, and the ease with which it has been constructed points
to the simplicity of the method employed.

Fig. 52.

The magic square shown in Fig. 53 is, however, only one of a
multitude of 8 X 8 squares, all of which have the same general

sf

JJ

J/

Jf

Aff

Xf

•/J

29

sz

49

22

Jf

/s

a*

Totals =: 260.

Fig. 53-

characteristics and may be constructed with equal facility from
various regular diagrams that can be readily derived from trans-
positions of Fig. 52. Five of these variations are illustrated in Fig.
54, which also show the transpositions by which they are formed
from the original diagrams. To construct a perfect magic square

454

THE MONIST.

from either of these variations it is only necessary to make four
copies of the one selected, annex the numbers I to 64 in arithmetical

Z.

. f

JX\

Fig. 54-

'

• * *<*

9

» * *"*

'7

J

jxf

to
ft

M

fff~

> rv

/^

*

It

tz

i

f3

j^

«>

to

,*

, «

*/

7

,

r i

**

tv
ff

x1

J ^9

72

7d

''

) \

f?

t<S ,

r N

, "9

^

Fig. 55-

order as before explained, and then copy the numbers in diagram-
matic sequence into the cells of an 8 X 8 square.

MAGIC SQUARES.

It will be noted in the construction of the 4X4 and 8X8
squares that only one form of diagram has been hitherto used for
each square, whereas three different forms were required for the
6X6 square. It is possible, however, to use either two, three, or

zs

so

+7

26

JO

J/

60

SJ

2'

20

Z9

'/Z

JT

22

A3

J/

/S

4"

32

'7

49

Totals = 260.

Fig. 56.

four different diagrams in the construction of an 8 X 8 square, as
shown in the annexed examples. Fig. 55 illustrates two different
forms from which the magic square Fig. 56 is constructed. Fig. 57

60

'7

37

Fig. 57

shows three different forms which are used in connection with the
square in Fig. 58, and in a similar manner Figs. 59 and 60 show
four different diagrams and the square derived therefrom. The
foregoing examples are sufficient to illustrate the immense number

456

THE MONIST.

:x

4*

40

32

* *v

j>

-. rfj

/•

**•

«

. *'

/2

1 5

/A

j^

/V

i •>"'

xj-

-, -7

/*

7

so

J/

63

/9

JJ

/A

7

V

23

SO

7

20

2f

/J

to

SI

z/

29

Of

/Z

zz

JO

J-/

z S

/f

+7

26

4 & Sf 6&

ft

JJ

if

Totals = 260.

Fig. 58.

Fig- 59-

/J

2S

2/

60

29

JS

SS

/s

J/

/f

49

JZ

Totals = 260.

Fig. 60.

MAGIC SQUARES.

457

of different 8X8 magic squares that may be constructed by the
aid of various diagrams.

We now come to the magic square of 10 X 10, and employing
the comparative method of the last examples, it will be easy to ex-
pand the three diagrams of the 6X6 square (Fig. 49) into five

Fig. 61.

iiagrams that are required for the construction of a series of
[o X 10 squares. These five diagrams are shown in Fig. 61, and
in Fig. 62 we have the magic square which is made by copying the
numbers from I to 100 in diagrammatic order into the cells of a
10 X 10 square.

458

THE MONIST.

It will be unnecessary to proceed further with the construction
of other 10 X 10 squares, for the student will recognize the striking

90

80

2'

93

/Z

7S>

29

8Z

Sf

2,3

SS

77

7s

Sf

2,6

7*

'7

6?

24

S?

7

JJ

.3-3

7*

92

/£>

22,

7*

7'

s/

ft

/#/>

Totals = 505.

Fig. 62.

resemblance between the diagrams of the 6X6 and the 10 X 10
squares, especially in connection with their respective irregularities,

/y*

/J

/<0

/*

/*»

/J-

/«/

/rf

S<fO

7

'33

/s

/JS

'S

/37

to

/3£

i/

/JJ-

31

/jy

23

/Jj

24

/31

3f

/J'

36

/Jo

7

/}£

2t

/It

29

"7

•30

/>fi

J/

>23

JZ

'IV

33

'23

jy

'22.

•Jf

/2/

JA

Fig. 63 (First part).

which point to the apparent impossibility of building perfect 10 X 10
squares.

It will also be seen that the same methods which were used for

MAGIC SQUARES.

459

varying the 6X6 diagrams, are equally applicable to the 10 X 10
diagrams, so that an almost infinite variety of changes may be rung
on them, from which a corresponding number of 10 X 10 squares

Fig. 63 (Second part).

/

r*&

/*2

4

J-

/J3

/AS

s

S

/3S

/^

/Z

/J2

'*

/S

/Z3

/ts

/f

/$

/ys

'*<r

2Z

23

/z/

/30

z6

*7

"7

//6

3o

J/

//3

//z

s*

JJ-

/off

J7

">7

/o6

*fO

«/

/03

/oz

4>4

#*

90

9S

4f

40

9S

0*

ft

fa

4/

30

J6

2

S7

t6

60

*<t

61

63,

S/

JO

66

*7

77

7^

7°

7'

73

7*

7+

7s

63

6f

7f

73

6f

6*

ft.

S3

£/

ff

S3

ss

JS

S3

jj-

•rt*

3Z

J>J

j-/

SO

3*

37

"7

«*

/oa

/o/

#j

42.

/0tf

/Of

3ff

Jf

/of

36

//ff

///

JJ

Ji

"f

//J-

3.9

2f

///

'f3

2f

24

/Z2.

/2J

3/

30

S2*

/27

'7

/6

/30

S3/

/*

/JJ

//

/a

/3t

"7

7

6

/i/e

'*'

J

Z

/4t

Totals = 870

Fig. 64.

may be derived, each of which will be different but will resemble
the series of 6 X 6 squares in their curious and characteristic im-
perfections.

460

THE MONIST.

We have thus far studied the construction of all even magic
squares up to and including that of 10 X 10, and it is worthy of
remark that when one half the number of cells in one side of an
even magic square is an even number the square can be made per-
fect, but when it is an uneven number it is apparently impossible
to build the square with perfect characteristics.

Even magic squares may therefore be divided into two classes
— perfect and imperfect — the 4X4 and the 8X8 squares belong-

Fig. 65 (First Part).

ing to the first class, and the 6 X 6 and 10 X 10 belonging to the
second class.

Fig. 63 shows a series of diagrams from which the 12 X 12
square in Fig. 64 is derived. The geometrical design of these
diagrams is the same as that shown in Fig. 52 for the 8X8 square,
and it is manifest that all the variations that were made in the 8X8
diagrams are also possible in the 12 X 12 diagrams, besides an
immense number of additional changes which are allowed by the
increased size of the square.

MAGIC SQUARES.

461

In Fig. 65 we have a series of diagrams illustrating the de-
velopment of the 14 X 14 magic square shown in Fig. 66. These
diagrams being plainly derived from the diagrams of the 6x6 and
10 X 10 squares, no explanation of them will be required, and it is

Fig. 65 (Second Part).

evident that the diagrammatic method may be readily applied to
the construction of all sizes of even magic squares.

[TO BE CONCLUDED.]

W. S. ANDREWS.

NEW YORK.

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS.

A CIRCULAR POLYGON.

LIMITS IN CONTINUA A RESULT OF PROCESS.

The current doctrine of the text-books regards the straight line and the
circle as essentially different things. The straight line is regarded as the limit
toward which the circle tends but which it never reaches. So also the circle
is regarded as the limit toward which the regular polygon tends but which it
never reaches. The theorems regarding the circumference and the area of a
circle are derived on the supposition that the circle is the limit which the
regular polygon almost but never quite reaches and that the error is negligible.
But we always have the reservation that the circle is not a polygon, say what
you will, and that there is an error, however small it may be; less than any
assignable quantity, but yet an error after all. The difference between the
circle and polygon is so small that for all practical purposes we may con-
sider them as one, but of course they are not one, and never can be, etc., etc.

And through all the array of verbiage we feel that there is a fallacy
somewhere ; it is and it isn't, all in the same breath ; the error is inexpressible
and yet the two forms do not coincide. We can push the polygon almost to
the circle; what is that invisible barrier which keeps it back?

There is no barrier except our own narrow definitions and methods. The
straight line is a circle of special form, not the limit of a circle; the circle is
a polygon, not the limit of a polygon. There is no error. The circle straight-
ens out into a straight line and sweeps over it into a circle on the other side.
The inscribed polygon merges into the circle and sweeps over it into a polygon
again on the other side.

Let us see what is meant by a limit, and why forms have limits.

A limit is that constant value (or form) which a variable value (or form)
approaches indefinitely near but never quite reaches. The test of a limit is,
where r is the limit of x, r — x = o, and r — x < *', where » is any infinitely
small value.

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS.

463

The subject of limits as taught in the elementary text-books is very crude
and fogged with lack of perspective.

In the first place no distinction is made between the limit in the case of
geometric forms (continua) and that of numbers (discreta). The two cases
are quite different and the distinction must be recognized.

It seems to be a rule that geometric forms have or have not a limit, de-
pendent entirely upon the method of generation; one method of generation
having a limit and the other not, for the same variable. For example, if the
angle X is generated by the movement of the intersection A, it has no limit;
but if by the movement of the intersection B, its limit is a right angle. So
likewise if we generate the arc x by the swelling of a cartwheel rim, the limit
is a straight line. But if we generate it by the tracing-point of a Peaucellier

linkage, it has no limit ; it straightens out into a straight line and then curves
the other way. In both these cases, it is the same variable, a line of constant
curvature. The elementary text-books blindfold their readers with a, not
necessarily faulty, but narrow definition. A circle is a line which always
changes its direction and a straight line is one which does not change etc.
And then triumphantly ask how one can be the other.

Throw away the blinders and get a broader view by taking a broader defi-
nition, viz., a line of constant curvature, and the contradiction ends.

The old contradiction between a tangent and a secant has begun its eva-
nescence by considering the tangent as a secant cutting in two coincident
points, one double point.

But when it comes to swelling an inscribed polygon into a circle, then,
they say, the law laid down above fails, since there is no instrument to do the
swelling, and however far you continue the process, there are points of cir-
cumference yet unoccupied by vertices of the polygon. The same objection

464 THE MONIST.

would have been made in the case of the circle and straight line, previous to
1864 when Peaucellier invented his linkage; showing that the question of
limit does not depend upon the inventiveness of man; but only our apprecia-
tion. Such an instrument could have been imagined in nubibus, and the same
argument used as here, and the argument would have been just as sound.
The only difference would have been its effect upon the hearers.

Let us look at some examples of limits.

(a) A point moving half the distance remaining between itself and the
goal each second; when will it reach the goal? Never, because between it
and the goal will ever remain the half of some distance. (&) A point moving
away half the distance between it and a pursuing point each instant of time;
when will the pursuing point catch the other? Never, because the pursuing
point is always the half of some distance ahead. But this is nonsense, for a
pursuing point moving twice as fast as the pursued can overtake it, as witness
the minute hand of a clock and the hour hand.

Where is the fallacy?

In (a) we have an infinite number of operations, stretching over an in-
finite number of seconds and therefore never ended. In (&) we have an in-
finite number of operations crowded into a limited time and therefore com-
pleted sometime. In (a) the succession of events is regular, but the speed of
the moving point is decreasing to infinite slowness. In (6) the speed of the
moving point is regular, but the succession of events is increasing to infinite
rapidity.

This shows how the same variable (the distance passed over by a point
moving one half the preceding distance at each operation) may or may not
have a limit, according to the special law governing its generation.

The introduction of a timed succession of events (finite intervals) pro-
duces a decreasing speed and a limit. A timed (finite intervals or constant)
speed produces an increasing rapidity of succession of events and no limit.
A horse straining at his halter finds the distance between him and the door
diminished one half each second. Can he ever get out? Never! A horse
straining at his halter finds the distance between him and the door dimin-
ished one half at each instant of strain. Can he get out ? Certainly, a steady
strain will carry him through the door. In the first case there is a timed
succession of events. In the second case there is a continuous and steady
strain, a timed rate of progress, finite speed.

In the case of the summation of a series of discrete terms the use of
discrete terms seems to be the equivalent of a timed succession of events, and
the series has a limit, if convergent. An illustration of the difference between
the summation of discreta and continua is given in the series I -f ^ + 1A +

i/£ -f- If we consider these terms as ordinates erected at finite intervals,

the summation has a limit, 2. But if we crowd the ordinates into a triangle

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS.

465

as shown, the sum is easily seen, by reason of the similar triangles to be
exactly 2, and there is no unattainable limit, no residual error. We actually
reach the sum, 2. In each case we have dealt with exactly the same ordinates;
and in one case arranged so as to have a limit to the sum, in the other case

no limit. Which result we shall get is entirely a question of arrangement.
In this instance, and for other geometric series, the sum of an infinite con-
verging series is a real, tangible quantity, and not an elusive limit, just out
of reach. A limit is the limit of a process and not necessarily any intrinsic
property of the variable itself.

If we imagine the inscribed polygon swelled toward the circle by doubling
the number of sides, etc., the circle seems to be the limit of the operation, for
the process of doubling introduces the timed succession of events which results
in a limit. But imagine a process which forced each centre of a chord (in-
scribed square) into a symmetrical position (i. e. on to the circumference of
the circle, through the undisturbed points) and this process kept up at an
even speed of surface change, like the constant strain of the horse at his
halter, or the even movement of the minute hand. The succession of events
increases to infinite rapidity, and the inscribed polygons sweep through the
circle into the circumscribed polygons. The newly produced vertices are
arranged on the circumference of the initial circumscribing circle until the
circle itself is reached, and then they arrange themselves on circles (of in-
creasing sizes) the alternate vertices being forced out until the undisturbed
ones evanesce on straight lines and the polygons become of lessening number

466 THE MONIST.

of sides until the circumscribing square is reached, and the process repeats
itself into a new circle around this new square, and so on. If instead of say-
ing "alternate vertices etc.," suppose we say, reversal of the process which
produces the circle from the circumscribed square by forcing the vertices
inward until they evanesce on straight lines, the newly produced vertices
being symmetrically arranged. This process kept up at an even speed of
surface change sweeps the polygons through the circle, and, by reversal of
the swelling process, into the inscribed square, and so on through a new cycle.
In imagination we can see the polygons swelling into other polygons, the
transition figure between the sets being the circle; as the parabola is the tran-
sition curve between the ellipse and the hyperbola. If we imagine the lines
to be general lines of infinite length we can see the plane, initially crossed by
the four bunches of lines, gradually becoming more and more crossed and
re-crossed with lines, except the central portion which is more and more
sharply delimited from the rest by the bounding polygon, which finally be-
comes a circle. As the process goes on we can see the lines coalescing again,
the plane becoming less darkened until finally we arrive again at a square,
and the process begins over again.

That we have no mechanism for producing these results is of no im-
portance. Until 1864 we had no mechanism which would enlarge a circle
into a straight line. Nor have we now any for sweeping the ellipse through
its transition curve, the parabola, into the hyperbola.

To conform to all this, the narrow definition of polygon must be enlarged
into a configuration of lines ; a regular polygon as a symmetrical configuration,
one phase of which is the circle, a regular configuration of an infinite number
of lines.

A pregnant illustration of this idea is the historic problem of squaring the
circle. In numbers this is impossible because IT, among other reasons, is the
limit of an infinite series of discrete terms. In geometry, with a ruler and
compass, the length of the circumference is also the limit of an infinite series
of operations and is therefore unattainable. But change the process by using
the integraph, and what was before a limit and just out of reach becomes
attainable, and we get a straight line equal in length to the circumference.

ARTHUR LATHAM BAKER.

MANUAL TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL, BROOKLYN, N. Y.

A MOSLEM ACCOUNT AS TO THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIAN
SECTS IN SYRIA.

To the Editor of The Monist.

The account of Christianity in the work of Shahrastani discussed in The
Monist of January last, more especially the concluding paragraph (p. 122 inf.),

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS. 467

alluding to three chief sects of Christians in Syria, reminds me of a certain
extract from Mirkhond (Mirkhavand), which somewhat puzzles me, and
which no one to whom I have applied here has been inclined or able to ex-
plain to my satisfaction.

I offer a translation from the Persian original (Raudat-al-safa^ or "Gar-
den of Purity," Book I) without any commentary, leaving it to you what use
you will make of it. I have tried to follow the original as closely as possible,
especially in the characteristic terms, among which "the God of the earth" —
khuddi-zamin — has rather a strange sound....

The passage reads as follows :

"OF YUNUS THE JEW LEADING ASTRAY THE CHRISTIANS.

"According ot Khamdin-ibn-'Abbas the followers of Jesus remained on
the sacred path for eighty years after his ascension. Then Yunus the Jew
led them away into the valley of error and unbelief.

"It happened in this wise:

"Yunus the Jew came among the Christians wearing a hermit's or monk's
gown. Four months did he stay at the house of a pious Christian, showing
to no one his unblessed face. His devout life produced great confidence
among the Christians, and when, after that period, he said, 'Send me three
of your learned men, in whom you place perfect confidence, that I may lay a
divine secret before each of them separately,' they sent to him Nestor and
Yakub and Malek.

"And in private he said to one of them, 'I am a messenger of Christ to
the people, to lighten the burden of their hearts on account of ( sic \ ) his
word.' And further he said, 'Do you know that Jesus restored life to the
dead, and did such and such things?' The learned man replied: 'Aye.' Then
Yunus asked him, 'Could any one but God do such things?' He said, 'No.'
Yunus said, 'Know then for certain, that Jesus is the Providence of that
world, who came down from heaven, and having borne his earthly lot to the
end, went back to heaven.'

"To the second learned man he said, privately, 'Are you aware that the
Lord Jesus performed such acts as no one but the Lord Creator could have
done?' The other assented. Yunus said, 'Do you know that the Lord Jesus
is sinless?' He said, 'Aye.' Yunus said, 'Then you ought to believe that
Jesus is the son of God, who sent him to the earth and took him up again
into heaven.'

"And with the third sage, again in private, he spoke similar words,
saying, 'He is the God of the earth, who, when men intended to kill him,
was concealed, and who will shortly return among the people. I have been
sent to bring these tidings.'

"Having communicated to them such false doctrine, he went into the
oratory, where he locked himself in. But that very night he went the way

468 THE MONIST.

to hell. And on the morrow, when the Christians inquired from the three
learned men what Yunus spoke to them, each of them had a different message
from the other two. So the people said, 'We had better hear Yunus himself.'
And they went and burst open the door of the oratory and found that Yunus
had been killed. And the Christians were divided into three sects, each one
adopting one of the three before-mentioned creeds."

H. WERNEKKE.
WEIMAR, GERMANY, February 27, 1905.

EDITORIAL COMMENT.

It appears that the communication of Professor Wernekke, ultimately
based upon the report of Khamdin-ibn-' Abbas, is the ancient Moslem view as
to the origin of Christian sects. According to Mohammed, Jesus was born of
a virgin, and is the greatest prophet of past ages, but the Christians are ac-
cused of misinterpreting the doctrine of their leader. Among other things
it is claimed that Jesus when speaking of the Comforter who would come and
initiate Christians into the truth (John xv. 26) referred to Mohammed; for
they claim that the Greek word Kapai&trros (i. e., Comforter) is but a cor-
ruption of Trapa/c/lvrof (i. e., the Renowned One) which is the meaning of the
name Mohammed. The present account is characteristic of the Moslem view.
It assumes that the primitive Christians were Christ's true followers, but that
their faith was perverted by a scheming villain, and even in the Orient the
odium of heresy is laid at the door of the Jews. P. c.

BOOK REVIEWS.

THE COLOR LINE. A Brief in Behalf of the Unborn. By William Benja-
min Smith. Pp. xv, 261. New York: McClure, Phillips & Co.

It will presently appear that this work is notably interesting on several
accounts apart from the gravity of its subject. That the race problem, par-
ticularly in the form in which it confronts the American people, is indeed a
momentous subject, none perhaps will deny. But who is the author? What
are his credentials? Is there good reason to suppose him qualified to under-
take so formidable a task? Is he capable of conceiving it adequately in both
its abstract and its concrete bearings, in its present and its future significance,
as at once a most intricate problem of pure science and a frightfully compli-
cated practical question for the decision of statesmen? Is he one from whom
may be expected a really serious, enlightened plea, free alike from ignorance,
from provincial prejudice, and from blinding sentiment? Such are the ques-
tions that busy men, before giving serious attention to any discussion of a
great subject, are naturally wont to ask, and in these crowded days of abound-
ing authorship they are right.

Doubtless many will be interested in the information that the Color Line
was written by the doubting '"David" of the Reign of Law, though in truth
it must be said that the "original" of David was much transformed and but
little transfigured or glorified by Mr. Allen's fantasy. The book in hand is
the first of its kind by a mathematician; and all the qualities of the mathe-
matical mind, excepting that of proverbial dryness, are evident throughout, in
its grasp and penetration, in the clearness and steadiness of its vision, in the
sharp precision with which its problems are stated, and in the boldness,
energy, and relentless logical rigor with which they are handled. Professor
Smith, who is head of the mathematical department of Tulane University,
is among the first Americans who gained the doctorate at a German Uni-
versity, where he won prizes for brilliant achievement in the austerest of the
sciences, physics and mathematics. As an inspiring teacher of "the universal
art apodictic" and as a writer on geometry both pure and analytic, and on
infinitesimal analysis, his reputation is national. The present book, however.

47O THE MONIST.

is not his first achievement outside the domain of mathematics. Neither is
it his first essay beyond the limits of purely academic authorship. Far from
it. His Life of James Sidney Rollins, "Pater Universitatis Missouriensis,"
written by request and printed for private distribution, his series of papers
in defence of the gold standard — a defence which in view of his Southern
residence and professional connection seems scarcely less than heroic, demon-
strating both patriotism and spiritual independence — these taken together
with his numerous contributions to the discussion of the tariff question, will
serve to indicate something of the range of his interest and activity, without
pausing to name the chief products of his pen, a series of critical memoirs in
the field of New Testament literature that have secured him and American
Biblical scholarship the profound respect of critical circles in England, Hol-
land, and Germany.

"They knew not," said Leibnitz of his friends who feared he would spe-
cialize too narrowly, "that my mind could not be satisfied with one kind of
things." It may indeed be that Leibnitz was, as DeQuincy calls him, "the
last of the universals." It is consoling to know, however, that any such fine
mot is at best but a partial truth, for, if inexpertness is the curse of the world,
the defect of expertness is depth at the expense of breadth, and many a larger
question has to await the single intelligence that shall be at once deep and
comprehensive. In this view it is matter for just pride and congratulation
that our most difficult social problem has received painstaking study and
candid treatment by an American scholar of whom it has been said that in his
best moments of well-being he appears to hold the entire body of the intel-
lectual achievements of the race in something very like true perspective. If
this seem to be fulsome praise, we admit the appearance but deny the reality.
It accords at any rate with our sober judgment deliberately formed in the
course of years. And we gladly record the judgment here as valid for us in
despite of the fact that the conclusions of the "Brief," while they commend
themselves to our understanding, are far from compatible with our liveliest
sentiments and severely condemn our former standards of conduct. For we
admit, or avow, or confess, as you will, that in the matter of social equality
our sympathies have always hitherto favored the standard of individual as
distinguished from racial excellence. We vividly recall, in view of Professor
Smith's terrific arraignment, the fearful risk we assumed of social ostracism
when as a resident in a Southern community we repeatedly invited to our
home a very black negro in order to enjoy the exceeding wit and intelligence
and candor of his conversation.

What of it? Well, in so doing, we were entirely unconscious that we
were doing wrong; quite the contrary in fact; presumably we were ignorant,
we had not reflected. Were we innocent? Far from it, if the doctrines of
this book be sound. By these, which in matters ethical transcend the common

BOOK REVIEWS. 471

categories and align themselves with the solemn secularities of the cosmic
processes, our conduct was very wicked ; not that any paltry specimen of it
was especially reprehensible, it was bad in kind, for its kind is such as needs
but to be generalized, adopted in common practice, to work the irreversible
doom of the highest race; we sinned against an idea, more sacred even than
that of family, our offence was one against "the most sacred thing on earth,"
the idea and norm of the Caucasian race. For, so the "Brief" contends, it
is not merely the privilege, it is the highest duty of this race in the South,
in the North, everywhere, "to keep open at all times, at all hazards, and at
all sacrifices, an impassable social chasm between the Black and the White,
no matter what the virtues or abilities or accomplishments" of any individual
Black may chance to be. Why? Because of the sole alternative. And what
is that ? The answer is : miscegenation, mongrelization, race amalgamation,
pammixia, the deadly enemy of race improvement and chief among the agen-
cies of inheritable organic degeneration.

Such in brief is the cardinal thesis of this brilliant book. Of its correct-
ness the author obviously entertains not an appreciable doubt, but he does
not mistake his own conviction for that of others ; and accordingly, against
every conceivable objection and counter hypothesis, he defends his doctrine
with a splendid army of fact and argument assembled from every department
of the commonwealth of knowledge. History and biology, literature and psy-
chology, mathesis and art, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and statistics,
all are made to contribute to the defence of his position. Is the defence every-
where successful? As to that readers will doubtless differ, but it is entirely
safe to affirm that the assailing forces are sadly in need of repose and of new
recruits and better discipline.

That race amalgamation is the inevitable corollary of social equality is
the testimony of observation and common sense alike, and is proved by the
uncontradicted witness of history. That amalgamation of two organically
unequal races yields a product organically inferior to the superior race is the
doctrine at once of history and biology. That the Negro is, not merely a
"backward race," but really, organically, mentally, hopelessly inferior to the
White, is a proposition supported, not alone by the best ascertained of facts
biological, ethnological, and anthropological, but by the total immensity, "the
infinite variety, of consentient testimony of all historic time and place." These
propositions once granted, the author's main thesis follows beyond a doubt;
nay, it fairly leaps into the field of vision, not merely however as a truth to
be beheld but as a mistress of conduct, a commander of conscience. Their
establishment is, therefore, the principal performance, the chief contribution
of the book.

Incidentally, however, and by way of supplement, other weighty words
are spoken. We do not remember to have seen elsewhere a weightier or

472 THE MONIST.

juster deliverance concerning the inherent limitations of the power of edu-
cation than that contained in Chapter V. Let the following serve as example :

"It is a colossal error to suppose that race improvement, in the strictest
sense of the term, can be wrought by education. The reason is simple and
easily understood: Race-improvement is organic; education is contra-organic.
Any change or amelioration that affects the race, the stock, the blood, must be
inherited; but education is not inherited, it is not inheritable. It must be
renewed generation after generation in each individual. The Sisyphus-stone
of culture is rolled with infinite toil up the steep ascent by the fathers; it
thunders instantly back, and must be rolled up again with equal agony and
bloody sweat by their children."

Judged as literature, this chapter, "A Dip into the Future" is the best in
the book. It maintains throughout a soberness, dignity, and elevation conso-
nant with the subject it contemplates, suitable to the vision it beholds — the
slow indeed but sure extinction of a race of men. For such is the doom
that awaits the black man of the United States. But the evanescence of the
Negro is not only assured, it has actually begun : the indications of the rates
of growth, of birth, of death, and of crime, taken with other indicia, make it
certain that the secular diminuendo has definitely entered upon the destined
course. Even "the Negro must feel that competition is becoming sharper,
that his territory is becoming narrower, that twentieth century citizenship is,
like the Gospel commandment, made for those who can receive it, that he
is unequal to the load cast upon him, that he is sinking beneath the burden
of an honor unto which he was not born." A sombre forecast indeed. Never-
theless, "all that breathe will share their destiny. It is appointed unto men
once to die." Besides, "in the upward mounting of the forms of life, there are
no other stepping-stones than their dead selves. The vision of a race van-
ishing before its superior is not at all dispiriting, but inspiring rather. It is
but a part of the increasing purpose of the ages, a forward creepng of the
eternal dawn."

From beginning to end the appeal is from the individual standard to the
race standard; from traditional maxims however kindly, to the warning dic-
tates of science however stern and cold; from the relative impotence of edu-
cation to the "omniprepotence of heredity" ; from sentiment that feels deeply
but does not see, to the imagination and the reason that depict and behold the
future; from interesting academic speculation as to what might happen if
things unknown were known, to the overwhelming body of ascertained fact
and the doctrine of probability. Whether one does or does not agree with
Professor Smith's conclusions, the candid reader will allow the book is one
with which future discussions of its difficult problems will be compelled to
reckon.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK. CASSIUS J. KEYSER.

BOOK REVIEWS. 473

THE CONTEMPORARY DEVELOPMENT OF DIPLOMACY. By David Jayne Hill,
LL. D. A Paper Read Before the International Congress of Arts and
Science at St. Louis, on September 23, 1904.

The author of this pamphlet is an American diplomat who has done
considerable service as assistant secretary of state and is now minister of
the United States to Switzerland. His essay on the contemporary develop-
ment of diplomacy is practically an outline of, or introduction to, a systematic
presentation of diplomacy as it ought to be, the diplomacy of the future.
Diplomacy has formerly been, and in some circles it is still, considered as
a profession which is not bound by any principles of morality. International
ethics is an ideal unknown to the diplomats of the old school, typified in
Machiavelli, represented by Talleyrand, and formulated by Ancillon and Count
Garden. Their view is well expressed in Henry Wotton's definition of an
ambassador as "a clever man sent abroad to lie for his country." The fore-
runners of a new conception which would base diplomacy and all international
relations upon principles of justice and fairness are mainly Gentilis and
Grotius, worked out in more recent days by Bluntschli and David Dudley
Field.

The civilized states of the Old World, foremost among them Germany,
England, and France, recognize the change that has set in, and new methods,
though inconsistent with the old ideas of sovereignty which regard the ruler
of a land as the supreme authority, ranking above the law nor being bound
in politics by any principles or rules of conscience, have gradually superseded
the old one. The modern diplomat is no longer of the Machiavelli type, and
the saying of Frederick the Great that the prince of a country is the first
servant of the state, puts a new and nobler interpretation upon the old idea
of sovereignty which already implies that moral maxims should also be bind-
ing for international transactions.

America, though ahead of other nations in a more modern conception
of the nature of the state and less hampered by wrong ideas of sovereignty,
is in some respects behind the historical development of Europe. Mr. Hill
says:

"In nearly all the countries of the world, — except the United States of
America, — candidates for the diplomatic service are rigorously examined be-
fore they are received, not only in international law and history, but in the
laws, languages, and constitutions of other countries, and especially in com-
mercial geography and the statistics of foreign trade. The result is, that the
men who serve modern governments as diplomatic representatives are com-
ing to have, in general, a knowledge of what is true, what is just, what is
expedient, and what is right in the relations and conduct of foreign states.
They constitute a valuable body of peacemakers and public advisers, whose
counsel is useful because it is based on knowledge."

4/4 THE MONIST.

Diplomacy is not a new science, but it is of great importance for our inter-
national relations. "Beneath the surface of political phenomena, flows a great
historical current which deserves the attention of thoughtful men. The ex-
pansive instinct of humanity changes its direction of action according to the
obstacles it has to overcome. In the era of political inequality, the general
aspiration was for liberty, which created in the eighteenth century a struggle
for national independence; but in the constitutional era that followed, the
larger human relations were revealed, and in the nineteenth century was de-
veloped the idea that modern nations are essentially interdependent. The
special task of the twentieth century will be to reconcile these two great
conceptions, and to unite independent states in bonds of peace, amiety, and
fruitful intercourse."

The ideal of international justice has grown slowly. The state, first
regarded as an ultimate and absolute authority, is now understood to rest
on a moral principle. The sovereignty of its ruler has been limited by a
constitution, and the constitution proves that the state itself, in order to
fulfill its mission, can no longer be administrated according to the principle
of absolutism, formulated by the French kings in the impudent dictum, the
ultimate reason of autocracy: car tel est notre bon plaisir. Constitutional
government has practically abolished the principle of sovereignty; but it
does more. In its turn it points to a further progress of mankind implying a
demand of the recognition of international morals.

Mr. Hill is not in sympathy with that morbid idealism which proclaims
"the dogma that no war is just, that bloodshed is never right, and that all
exercise of force is wrong. Such a doctrine owes its very possibility to the
protection of institutions that would not exist for a single day, if society
had not the force and determination to destroy its enemies."

A weak beginning only has been made to establish international relations
upon a basis of justice, viz., the Hague Tribunal, which, however, is still
looked upon with suspicion by all those who still cling to the sovereign pre-
tensions of the state.

In the society of nations there is neither legislature, nor judiciary, nor
executive, and whether it will be possible to abolish armies and navies and
have them replaced by an international police who would insure the peace
of the world remains to be seen.

So far the hope of abolishing standing armies and navies is only a Pla-
tonic notion, but a great advance is noticeable and the main factor in human
progress toward the ideal of international ethics will be the development of
an international conscience, represented by a higher respect for international
ethics. Mr. Hill says:

"It will be a great advance in education, when our text-books on ethics
devote their concluding chapter to international morality; for no ethical sys-

BOOK REVIEWS. 475

tern can be complete, either in a public or a scientific sense, which does not
include in the scope of its theory the moral functions of the State and the
ethics of international intercourse. When, in the schools of all civilized coun-
tries, the young are taught that moral obligation does not end with national
frontiers, that states are moral entities subject to the great principles of
ethics, and that treaties once freely accepted are sacred ; when national history
has learned to be fair and honest in its representation of other nations; a
new era of human development will be opened, and diplomacy will enter
upon a new period of efficiency."

LA PSYCHOLOGIE DES ROMANCIERS RUSSES DU XIX. SIECLE. By

Paris : Felix Alcan. Pp. xv, 438. Price, 7 fr. 50 .

In the introduction to his "Psychology of the Russian Novelists of the
Nineteenth Century," Prof. Ossip-Lourie of the New University at Brussels
furnishes a compendious review of Russian literature. His account begins
with the oral expression of the confused beliefs of semi-barbarous pagans
and their earliest epics. It follows the history of letters through the early
monkish influences, the rise of intellectual culture with the introduction of
printing, and the century and a half of further development which succeeded,
until Peter the Great with the importation of Western civilization ushered
in a new era. This flourishing epoch was followed by a period of imitators
and critics, who gave place about 1830 to a "host of poets, novelists, drama-
tists, essayists, and philosophers who drew from themselves and their sur-
roundings the fundamental elements of their works." But M. Ossip-Lourie
says that in the last century the novel has had the greatest significance in
Russian literature. Before Gogol the novel (or rather the story) had kept
within the poetic regions of pure imagination, but since his time it has
reproduced faithfully actual life with its unattractve features as well as its
beauties.

Each of the great Russian novelists has risen from different social sur-
roundings, and gives us in his work, the spirit, ideas, customs, and aspirations
of his particular station. The Russian novel is made up of forces issuing
from all the classes that constitute the nation, so that, taken as a whole, it
gives a faithful likeness of Russian society in the nineteenth century. How-
ever, the Russian novelists are not simply portrayers of the customs of their
times. They are intellectual creators, introducing into literature a new man-
ner of thinking, and of depicting life and men. Each of them is dominated
by a particular type of mind and imagination which governs both his indi-
vidual and his artistic life. He sees the world through his own emotions,
sentiments, and ideas, through that infinite procession of images and concep-
tions that he was within himself. By understanding his personality we can

476 THE MONIST.

better comprehend the characters that he creates, the types that he analyzes,
the conditions which he presents.

The object of this present work is to study each of the Russian novelists
under the different aspects of his personality and literary talent; to establish
the psychological and intellectual state of each writer by the characteristic
features of his life ; to dissect, analyze, and define the work of each by the
internal evidence of that work. After pointing out the importance of psy-
chology in connection with literary criticism, M. Ossip-Lourie studies in turn
the life and work of Gogol, Tourguenev, Gontcharov, Dostoievsky, Tolstoy,
Gaichine, Tchekov, Korolenko, Maxim Gorki, and several minor writers.
While showing forth the immense individual effort of these authors, he admits
that no other literature has produced so many cases of pathology of the will
as the Russian novel. This phenomenon is accounted for by the distinctive
peculiarities of social life in Russia.

In his conclusion M. Ossip-Lourie sketches in bold outlines a psychology
of Russian classes. He says that the ruling class has still remained Asiatic
at heart under a veneer of civilization. The people have always been sacri-
ficed and kept beneath the yoke of bondage. One might even say that they
have been purposely inebriated in order that they might continue resistless
and incapable of revolt. There is an intellectual liberal class of which a
small minority strive valliantly for liberty; but the greater number have the
desire without the will to oppose the elements of despotic force. They love
liberty in the abstract, but they believe it is compatible with czarism, and that
a social transformation can be brought about by peaceful methods. They
are too indolent to do any good, and they do harm in that they prevent the
progressives from acting. These last are but a small party with abundant
energy and will, but no means to carry out their purposes. Many of them
are found among the impetuous undergraduates of the universities.

The book closes by urging the necessity of a frank and loyal union of
all the vital forces of Russia, and claims that Europe as a whole ought to
consider it a moral duty to come to the aid of the slowly developing civil-
izing forces there.

ESQUISSE D'UNE HISTOIRE GENERALE ET COMPARES DES PHILOSOPHIES ME-
DIEVALLES. Par Francois Picavet, directeur-adjoint a 1'Ecole pratique
des Hautes Etudes. Paris : Felix Alcan. 1905. Pp. xxxvii, 366. Price,
7 fr. 50.

It is well known that Leo XIII was a very enthusiastic adherent of St.
Thomas, and has done much to restore the influence of Thomism in these
latter days. Undoubtedly St. Thomas has been the representative thinker
of the church ; yet, after all, the man who swayed not only Thomism but
the entire Mediaeval philosophy, was that ancient mystic, Plotinus. According

BOOK REVIEWS. 477

to his views, there is a sensible world, and a spiritual world (the latter com-
monly called mundus intelligibilis). This spiritual world is dominated by
the principle of perfection, its highest authority being God. The soul is
encompassed by the sensible world, but can attain to a union with God in
states of ecstasy.

Professor Picavet, one of the most distinguished of French savants,
devotes his latest work to an investigation of the Mediaeval Philosophy,
pointing out the significance of Plotinus. He especially indicates in the por-
tion devoted to synchronic and comparative history, the following phases of
philosophic thought pertaining to corresponding periods of time: from the
Council of Nice to 529 A. D., the conflict between the neoplatonists and the
Christians ; from 529 to Charlemagne, the efforts to preserve as much as
possible of ancient thought and civilization; from the ninth to the thirteenth
centuries, the philosophical works of the Byzantines and Western Christians,
the Mussulmans and Jews; from the thirteenth century to the Renaissance
and the Reformation, the development of Christian thought in the Occident;
from this period to the seventeenth century, the revival of ancient systems,
the continued influence or restoration of Christian philosophies, the develop-
ment of Protestant philosophies, and the appearance of a scientific philosophy,
which up to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as it increased in impor-
tance, stood more and more in opposition to mediaeval doctrines.

This work of Professor Picavet helps us to understand better not only
the Middle Ages, but the transition from ancient to mediaeval civilization,
and the nature of modern society and civilization. It permits us too, to form
a philosophy of religion by relying on those religions which are best known
and have presented the highest and most varied forms. Texts of earlier
works have been carefully studied, and the result constitutes a safe guide
both for students who wish to pursue their researches further, and for those
people who desire to obtain only a general idea of this interesting phase of
the history of philosophy.

ZUR ElNFUHRUNG IN DIE PHILOSOPHIE DER GEGENWART. Acht VortragC VOH

Alois Riehl. Second edition. Leipsic: B. G. Teubner. 1904. Pp. 274.
Professor Riehl's "Philosophy of the Present" discusses almost all the
questions which have excited popular interest in modern times, and so we
need not be astonished that this treatise has reached its second edition in a
very short time. His method is that of historic or critical procedure, and all
systematic construction has been avoided. The book consists of eight lectures
of which five are devoted to the theoretical task of philosophy, elucidating
its relation to science in classical antiquity as well as in modern times. They
discuss the foundation of critical philosophy, its relation to the exact sciences,
the conditions of cognition, together with the most significant problems of

478 THE MONIST.

epistemology, monism, and the natural sciences. The last three lectures are
devoted to practical questions : the problem of a systematic conception of the
world, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and finally philosophy at present and in
time to come. With special reference to the idea of personality which has
been so strongly emphasized of late, Professor Riehl calls attention to Goethe's
view on the subject, saying:

"No one has valued the importance of personality more highly than
Goethe, who prizes it as the greatest blessing of the human race; but he
also recognized and honored the super-personal, the super-human, and re-
spected the limitations of mankind. ' The quintessence of the universe can
not be comprehended in a formula; rather is it distinctly and forcibly repre-
sented in great personalities.' 'God is constantly acting in higher natures
in order to help the lower to advance.' 'It is typical of great personalities
to be incorporated into the national life.' And while Goethe thought highly
of great personalities, he knew at the same time that even the greatest man
is nothing by himself, that he does not live for himself alone. 'Whatever
man may undertake and direct, the individual is not sufficient unto himself.
For in fact we are all collective beings, no matter what we do. How little
we have and are that in the truest sense we can call our own! We must
accept and learn from those who were before us as well as from those who
are with us. The main thing is for man to have a great purpose, and the
determination to carry it out.' "

STUDIES IN THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. For the Use of Classes in
Secondary Schools and in the Secondary Division of the Sunday
School. By Ernest De Witt Burton, Professor in the University of
Chicago. Chicago : The University Press. 1904. Pp. xxx, 248. Price,
$1.00.

The author of this book belongs to that class of theologians who recog-
nise higher criticism. He has pointed out that the title "The Gospel Accord-
ing to Mark" was not written by the original author himself, and that the
Appendix, Chapter XVI, Verses 9 to 20, is not really a continuation of this
Gospel ; but the results of higher f riticism are after all withheld, for especially
in the latter case the arguments are not mentioned, and no reason is given
why the original has been published. Further no mention is made of anj
criticism that could endanger the traditional conceptions of the divinity of
Christ, or the spirit that drives him into the desert, or the nature of the temp-
tation. Buddhist parallels are nowhere mentioned. Thus the book, in spite
of its advanced position in certain lines, may be considered as still representing
the old conception of Christianity.

The book is attractively made up. The material is conveniently dividec
into sections. Illustrations help to relieve the monotony of a school book, ant

BOOK REVIEWS. 479

a dictionary of terms is added which contains most important instruction
concerning terms and names used in the Gospel ; for instance such words as
"Golgotha," "Son of Man," "shew bread," "Sanhedrin," "Son of David," etc.
However, some very important terms are missing that stand in great need of
illustration, for instance "Nazarene." The author apparently assumes that
Nazarene is simply the inhabitant of Nazareth, which, according to the
traditional interpretation, is identified with el-Nasira.

The seventh volume of L'annee biologique, covering the year 1902, has
just been published under the direction of Yves Delage, Member of the
Institute and Professor at the Sorbonne, with the collaboration of a staff
of able co-editors. The present annual is a volume of over six hundred
pages and covers almost the entire range of biological science. It contains
twenty chapters : I. The Cell, its Chemical Structure and its Parts, its
Physiology and Functions; II. Sexual Products and Fecundation, the Origin
of Embryology, Normal Fecundation, Merogony, Partial Fecundation; III.
Parthenogenesis, its Conditions and Experimental Parthenogenesis; IV.
Asexual Reproduction, by Division, by Budding, and by Spores; V. Onto-
genesis, Tactisms, Tropisms, Functional Excitation, Ontogenetic Adaptation,
Bio-mechanics ; VI. Teratogenesis, Laws and Causes of the Formation of
Monsters ; Experimental Teratogenesis and Natural Teratogenesis ; VII.
Regeneration, Normal as Well as Heteromorphic ; VIII. Grafting; IX. Sex
and Secondary Sexual Characters ; X. Metagenic Polymorphism, Metamor-
phism and the Alteration of Generation ; XI. Latent Characters ; XII. Corre-
lations Between Organs and their Functions ; XIII. Death, Senility and
Immortality of Protists and Germinative Plasm; XIV. Morphology and
General Physiology, Chemical Compositions of Organic Substances, Physi-
ology of Nutrition and the Action of the Different Agents; XV. Heredity,
Transmission of Characters; XVI. Variation, its Laws, its Forms, and its
Causes; XVII. The Origin of Species and their Characters, Fixation of
Different Kinds of Variations, New Formations, Divergences, Convergences,
Phlsiological Adaptation, Physiological Species, Factors of the Formation of
Species and Artificial and Natural Selection, Germinal, Sexual, etc., Segrega-
tion and Pan-mixia, Direct Influence of the Mileur, Particular Adaptations,
Symbiosis, Parasitism, Mimicry, Phylogeny, the Disappearance of Species;
XVIII. The Geographical Distribution of Living Forms; XIX. The Nervous
System and Mental Functions, Structure and Functions of the Nerve Cells,
Nervous Centers, and Sense Organs; The Nervous Cell, its Physiology and
Pathology; Nerve Centers, their Structure; Cerebral Localisations, Sense
Organs; Psychical Processes, Sensations, Sentiments, Ideation, Comparative
Psychology; XX. General Theories.

480 THE MONIST.

Professor Wilhelm Windelband has delivered a memorial lecture in com-
memoration of the centennial return of Kant's day of death at the University
of Heidelberg, and Karl Winters, the University publisher of Heidelberg, has
published it in pamphlet form.* Professor Windelband epitomises in it the
significance of Kant's life and thought, especially emphasising the moral tenor
of his philosophy.

From Italy we have received a number of pamphlets on philosophical
subjects; one by Dr. Erminio Troilof on the doctrine of cognition in Herbert
Spencer which is in reality a critical review of the philosophy of agnosticism,
especially compared with Kant's critical transcendentalism.

Another pamphlet comes from Florence.^ It is written by Dr. Guglielmo
Salvadori and treats a series of problems of moral philosophy under the title
Moral Sentiment. It discusses in the first chapter the criterion of the moral
value of the ethical sentiment, in the second chapter the classification of the
moral sentiment, in the third chapter the development of the moral sentiment.
In the conclusion our author descants on the moral sentiment from the
empirical, metaphysical, and rational point of view. The standpoint which he
takes is a kind of rational eudemonism founded upon the experiences of the
utilitarian school.

The third book§ is written by Dr. Roberto Ardigo and published at Turin
by Bocca Brothers. It is an historical treatise of about 300 pages on the
doctrine of cognition from Descartes to Kant. In the introduction he speaks
of modern philosophy and its experimental methods as instanced in Galileo.
Chapter I. treats of Bacon and Galileo, Chapter II., of Descartes, Leibnitz,
Wolff, and Berkeley, Chapter III., of Locke, Hume, and minor contemporaries
of Kant, especially Moses, Mendelssohn, Lambert, Burthogge, closing with
an appreciation of the drift of modern philosophy of the character of modern
thought, and the death sentence of the old philosophy as enunciated by Kant.
Chapter IV. contains the gnoj^o-logical value of the scientific revolution of
modern times.

*lmmanual Kant und seine Weltanschauung.

\La Dottrina della Conoscenza pi Herbert Spencer. Bologna : Stab.
tSaggio di uno Studio sui Sentimenti Morali. Firenze : Francesco,
f La Dottrina della Conoscenza Nei Moderni Precursori di Kant.

VOL. XV. OCTOBER, 1905. No. 4.

THE MONIST

ISSUES OF PRAGMATICISM.

T)RAGMATICISM was originally enounced1 in the form of a
*• maxim, as follows: Consider what effects that might con-
ceivably have practical bearings you conceive the objects of your
conception to have. Then, your conception of those effects is the
whole of your conception of the object.

I will restate this in other words, since ofttimes one can thus
eliminate some unsuspected source of perplexity to the reader. This
time it shall be in the indicative mood, as follows: The entire in-
tellectual purport of any symbol consists in the total of all general
modes of rational conduct which, conditionally upon all the possible
different circumstances and desires, would ensue upon the accept-
ance of the symbol.

Two doctrines that were defended by the writer about nine
years before the formulation of pragmaticism may be treated as
consequences of the latter belief. One of these may be called Crit-
ical Common-sensism. It is a variety of the Philosophy of Common
Sense, but is marked by six distinctive characters, which had better
be enumerated at once.

Character I. Critical Common-sensism admits that there not
only are indubitable propositions but also that there are indubitable
inferences. In one sense, anything evident is indubitable; but the
propositions and inferences which Critical Common-Sensism holds
to be original, in the sense one cannot "go behind" them (as the

1 Popular Science Monthly, XII, 293; for Jan. 1878. An introductory
article opens the volume, in the number for Nov., 1877.

482 THE MONIST.

lawyers say) are indubitable in the sense of being acritical. The
term "reasoning" ought to be confined to such fixation of one be-
lief by another as is reasonable, deliberate, self-controlled. A
reasoning must be conscious; and this consciousness is not mere
"immediate consciousness," which (as I argued in 1868, 7. Spec.
PhiL, Vol. II) is simple Feeling viewed from another side, but is
in its ultimate nature (meaning in that characteristic element of it
that is not reducible to anything simpler), a sense of taking a habit,
or disposition to respond to a given kind of stimulus in a given
kind of way. As to the nature of that, some eclair tissements will
appear below and again in my third paper, on the Basis of Pragmati-
cism. But the secret of rational consciousness is not so much to
be sought in the study of this one peculiar nucleolus, as in the
review of the process of self-control in its entirety. The machinery
of logical self-control works on the same plan as does moral self-
control, in multiform detail. The greatest difference, perhaps, is that
the latter serves to inhibit mad puttings forth of energy, while the
former most characteristically insures us against the quandary of
Buridan's ass. The formation of habits under imaginary action
(see the paper of Jan., 1878, p. 290 at the top) is one of the most
essential ingredients of both ; but in the logical process the imagina-
tion takes far wider flights, proportioned to the generality of the
field of inquiry, being bounded in pure mathematics solely by the
limits of its own powers, while in the moral process we consider
only situations that may be apprehended or anticipated. For in
moral life we are chiefly solicitous about our conduct and its inner
springs, and the approval of conscience, while in intellectual life
there is a tendency to value existence as the vehicle of forms. Cer-
tain obvious features of the phenomena of self-control (and espe-
cially of habit), can be expressed compactly and without any hypo-
thetical addition, except what we distinctly rate as imagery, by say-
ing that we have an occult nature of which and of its contents we
can only judge by the conduct that it determines, and by phenomena
of that conduct. All will assent to that (or all but the extreme
nominalist), but anti-synechistic thinkers wind themselves up in a
facticious snarl by falsifying the phenomena in representing con-

ISSUES OF PRAGMATICISM. 483

sciousness to be, as it were, a skin, a separate tissue, overlying an
unconscious region of the occult nature, mind, soul, or physiological
basis. It appears to me that in the present state of our knowledge
a sound methodeutic prescribes that, in adhesion to the appearances,
the difference is only relative and the demarcation not precise.

According to the maxim of Pragmaticism, to say that deter-
mination affects our occult nature is to say that it is capable of
affecting deliberate conduct; and since we are conscious of what
we do deliberately, we are conscious habitualiter of whatever hides
in the depths of our nature; and it is presumable (and only pre-
sumable,2 although curious instances are on record), that a suffi-
ciently energetic effort of attention would bring it out. Conse-
quently, to say that an operation of the mind is controlled is to say
that it is, in a special sense, a conscious operation ; and this no doubt
is the consciousness of reasoning. For this theory requires that in
reasoning we should be conscious, not only of the conclusion, and
of our deliberate approval of it, but also of its being the result of
the premiss from which it does result, and furthermore that the
inference is one of a possible class of inferences which conform to
one guiding principle. Now in fact we find a well-marked class of
mental operations, clearly of a different nature from any others
which do possess just these properties. They alone deserve to be
called reasonings; and if the reasoner is conscious, even vaguely, of
what his guiding principle is, his reasoning should be called a logical
argumentation. There are, however, cases in which we are conscious
that a belief has been determined by another given belief, but are
not conscious that it proceeds on any general principle. Such is
St. Augustine's "cogito, ergo sum.1' Such a process should be called,
not a reasoning but an acritical inference. Again, there are cases
in which one belief is determined by another, without our being at
all aware of it. These should be called associational suggestions
of belief.

Now the theory of Pragmaticism was originally based, as any-
body will see who examines the papers of Nov. 1877 and Jan. 1878,

1 But see the experiments of J. Jastrow and me "On Slight Differences of
Sensation" in the Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences. Vol. III.

484 THE MONIST.

upon a study of that experience of the phenomena of self-control
which is common to all grown men and women ; and it seems evi-
dent that to some extent, at least, it must always be so based. For
it is to conceptions of deliberate conduct that Pragmaticism would
trace the intellectual purport of symbols; and deliberate conduct is
self-controlled conduct. Now control may itself be controlled, criti-
cism itself subjected to criticism; and ideally there is no obvious
definite limit to the sequence. But if one seriously inquires whether
it is possible that a completed series of actual efforts should have
been endless or beginningless, (I will spare the reader the discus-
sion), I think he can only conclude that (with some vagueness as
to what constitutes an effort) this must be regarded as impossible.
It will be found to follow that there are, besides perceptual judgments,
original (i. e. indubitable because uncriticized) beliefs of a general
and recurrent kind, as well as indubitable acritical inferences.

It is important for the reader to satisfy himself that genuine
doubt always has an external origin, usually from surprise ; and that
it is as impossible for a man to create in himself a genuine doubt
by such an act of the will as would suffice to imagine the condition
of a mathematical theorem, as it would be for him to give himself
a genuine surprise by a simple act of the will.

I beg my reader also to believe that it would be impossible for
me to put into these articles over two per cent, of the pertinent
thought which would be necessary in order to present the subject
as I have worked it out. I can only make a small selection of what
it seems most desirable to submit to his judgment. Not only must
all steps be omitted which he can be expected to supply for himself,
but unfortunately much more that may cause him difficulty.

Character II. I do not remember that any of the old Scotch phi-
losophers ever undertook to draw up a complete list of the original
beliefs, but they certainly thought it a feasible thing, and that the list
would hold good for the minds of all men from Adam down. For in
those days Adam was an undoubted historical personage. Before any
waft of the air of evolution had reached those coasts how could they
think otherwise? When I first wrote, we were hardly orientated
in the new ideas, and my impression was that the indubitable propo-

ISSUES OF PRAGMATICISM. 485

sitions changed with a thinking man from year to year. I made
some studies preparatory to an investigation of the rapidity of these
changes, but the matter was neglected, and it has been only during
the last two years that I have completed a provisional inquiry
which shows me that the changes are so slight from generation to
generation, though not imperceptible even in that short period, that
I thought to own my adhesion, under inevitable modification, to the
opinion of that subtle but well-balanced intellect, Thomas Reid, in
the matter of Common Sense (as well as in regard to immediate
perception, along with Kant).3

Character III. The Scotch philosophers recognized that the
original beliefs, and the same thing is at least equally true of the
acritical inferences, were of the general nature of instincts. But
little as we know about instincts, even now, we are much better
acquainted with them than were the men of the XVIIIth century.
We know, for example, that they can be somewhat modified in a
very short time. The great facts have always been known; such
as that instinct seldom errs, while reason goes wrong nearly half
the time, if not more frequently. But one thing the Scotch failed to
recognize is that the original beliefs only remain indubitable in their
application to affairs that resemble those of a primitive mode of life.
It is, for example, quite open to reasonable doubt whether the mo-
tions of electrons are confined to three dimensions, although it is
good methodeutic to presume that they are until some evidence to
the contrary is forthcoming. On the other hand, as soon as we find
that a belief shows symptoms of being instinctive, although it may
seem to be dubitable, we must suspect that experiment would show
that it is not really so ; for in our artificial life, especially in that of
a student, no mistake is more likely than that of taking a paper-
doubt for the genuine metal. Take, for example, the belief in the
criminality of incest. Biology will doubtless testify that the prac-
tice is unadvisable; but surely nothing that it has to say could

* I wish I might hope, after finishing some more difficult work, to be able
to resume this study and to go to the bottom of the subject, which needs the
qualities of age and does not call upon the powers of youth. A great range
of reading is necessary ; for it is the belief men betray and not that which they
parade which has to be studied.

486 THE MONIST.

warrant the intensity of our sentiment about it. When, however,
we consider the thrill of horror which the idea excites in us, we
find reason in that to consider it to be an instinct ; and from that we
may infer that if some rationalistic brother and sister were to
marry, they would find that the conviction of horrible guilt could
not be shaken off.

In contrast to this may be placed the belief that suicide is to
be classed as murder. There are two pretty sure signs that this
is not an instinctive belief. One is that it is substantially confined
to the Christian world. The other is that when it comes to the
point of actual self-debate, this belief seems to be completely ex-
punged and ex-sponged from the mind. In reply to these powerful
arguments, the main points urged are the authority of the fathers
of the church and the undoubtedly intense instinctive clinging to
life. The latter phenomenon is, however, entirely irrelevant. For
though it is a wrench to part with life, which has its charms at the
very worst, just as it is to part with a tooth, yet there is no moral
element in it whatever. As to the Christian tradition, it may be
explained by the circumstances of the early Church. For Chris-
tianity, the most terribly earnest and most intolerant of religions, —
[See The Book of Revelations of St. John the Divine,} — and it
remained so until diluted with civilization, — recognized no moral-
ity as worthy of an instant's consideration except Christian moral-
ity. Now the early Church had need of martyrs, i. e., witnesses,
and if any man had done with life, it was abominable infidelity to
leave it otherwise than as a witness to its power. This belief, then,
should be set down as dubitable; and it will no sooner have been
pronounced dubitable, than Reason will stamp it as false.

The Scotch School appear to have no such distinction, con-
cerning the limitations of indubitability and the consequent limita-
tions of the jurisdiction of original belief.

Character IV. By all odds, the most distinctive character of the
Critical Common-sensist, in contrast to the old Scotch philosopher,
lies in his insistence that the acritically indubitable is invariably
vague.

Logicians have been at fault in giving Vagueness the go-by,

ISSUES OF PRAGMATICISM. 487

so far as not even to analyze it. The present writer has done his
best to work out the Stechiology (or Stoicheiology), Critic, and
Methodeutic of the subject, but can here only give a definition or
two with some proposals respecting terminology.

Accurate writers have apparently made a distinction between
the definite and the determinate. A subject is determinate in re-
spect to any character which inheres in it or is (universally and
affirmatively) predicated of it, as well as in respect to the negative
of such character, these being the very same respect. In all other
respects it is indeterminate. The definite shall be defined presently.
A sign (under which designation I place every kind of thought, and
not alone external signs,) that is in any respect objectively indeter-
minate (i. e. whose object is undetermined by the sign itself) is
objectively general in so far as it extends to the interpreter the
privilege of carrying its determination further.4 Example : "Man is
mortal." To the question, What man? the reply is that the propo-
sition explicitly leaves it to you to apply its assertion to what man
or men you will. A sign that is objectively indeterminate in any
respect is objectively vague in so far as it reserves further determi-
nation to be made in some other conceivable sign, or at least does
not appoint the interpreter as its deputy in this office. Example:
"A man whom I could mention seems to be a little conceited." The
suggestion here is that the man in view is the person addressed ;
but the utterer does not authorize such an interpretation or any
other application of what she says. She can still say, if she likes,
that she does not mean the person addressed. Every utterance
naturally leaves the right of further exposition in the utterer; and

4 Hamilton and a few other logicians understood the subject of a universal
proposition in the collective sense; but every person who is well-read in logic
is familiar with many passages in which the leading logicians explain with an
iteration that would be superfluous if all readers were intelligent, that such a
subject is distributively not collectively general. A term denoting a collection
'is singular, and such a term is an "abstraction" or product of the operation of
hypostatic abstraction as truly as is the name of the essence. "Mankind" is
quite as much an abstraction and ens rationis as is "humanity." Indeed, every
object of a conception is either a signate individual or some kind of indeter-
minate individual. Nouns in the plural are usually distributive and general;
common nouns in the singular are usually indefinite.

488 THE MONIST.

therefore, in so far as a sign is indeterminate, it is vague, unless it
is expressly or by a well-understood convention rendered general.
Usually, an affirmative predication covers generally every essential
character of the predicate, while a negative predication vaguely de-
nies some essential character. In another sense, honest people, when
not joking, intend to make the meaning of their words determinate,
so that there shall be no latitude of interpretation at all. That is
to say, the character of their meaning consists in the implications
and non-implications of their words ; and they intend to fix what is
implied and what is not implied. They believe that they succeed in
doing so, and if their chat is about the theory of numbers, perhaps
they may. But the further their topics are from such presciss, or
"abstract," subjects, the less possibility is there of such precision
of speech. In so far as the implication is not determinate, it is
usually left vague; but there are cases where an unwillingness to
dwell on disagreeable subjects causes the utterer to leave the deter-
mination of the implication to the interpreter ; as if one says, "That
creature is filthy, in every sense of the term."

Perhaps a more scientific pair of definitions would be that any-
thing is general in so far as the principle of excluded middle does
not apply to it and is vague in so far as the principle of contradic-
tion does not apply to it. Thus, although it is true that "Any propo-
sition you please, once you have determined its identity, is either
true or false" ; yet so long as it remains indeterminate and so with-
out identity, it need neither be true that any proposition you please is
true, nor that any proposition you please is false. So likewise, while
it is false that "A proposition whose identity I have determined is
both true and false," yet until it is determinate, it may be true that
a proposition is true and that a propostion is false.

In those respects in which a sign is not vague, it is said to be
definite, and also with a slightly different mode of application, to
be precise, a meaning probably due to pr&cisus having been applied
to curt denials and refusals. It has been the well-established, ordi-
nary sense of precise since the Plantagenets ; and it were much to
be desired that this word, with its derivatives precision, precisive,
etc., should, in the dialect of philosophy, be restricted to this sense.

ISSUES OF PRAGMATICISM. 489

To express the act of rendering precise (though usually only in
reference to numbers, dates, and the like,) the French have the
verb preciser, which, after the analogy of decider, should have been
precider. Would it not be a useful addition to our English termi-
nology of logic, to adopt the verb to precide, to express the general
sense, to render precise? Our older logicians with salutary bold-
ness seem to have created for their service the verb to prescind,
the corresponding Latin word meaning only to "cut off at the end,"
while the English word means to suppose without supposing some
more or less determinately indicated accompaniment. In geometry,
for example, we "prescind" shape from color, which is precisely
the same thing as to "abstract" color from shape, although very
many writers employ the verb "to abstract" so as to make it the
equivalent of "prescind." But whether it was the invention or the
courage of our philosophical ancestors which exhausted itself in the
manufacture of the verb "prescind," the curious fact is that instead
of forming from it the noun prescission, they took pattern from the
French logicians in putting the word precision to this second use.
About the same time5 [See Watts. Logick, 1725, I, vi, 9 ad fin.]
the adjective precisive was introduced to signify what prescissive
would have more unmistakably conveyed. If we desire to rescue
the good ship Philosophy for the service of Science from the hands
of lawless rovers of the sea of literature, we shall do well to keep
prescind, presciss, prescission, and prescissive on the one hand, to
refer to .dissection in hypothesis, while precide, precise, precision, and
precisive are used so as to refer exclusively to an expression of
determination which is made either full or free for the interpreter.
We shall thus do much to relieve the stem "abstract" from stagger-
ing under the double burden of conveying the idea of prescission
as well as the unrelated and very important idea of the creation of
ens rationis out of an «ros Trrcpoev, — to filch the phrase to furnish
a name for an expression of non-substantive thought, — an opera-

BBut unfortunately it has not been in the writer's power to consult the
Oxford Dictionary concerning these words; so that probably some of the
statements in the text might be corrected with the aid of that work.

49° THE MONIST.

tion that has been treated as a subject of ridicule, — this hypostatic
abstraction, — but which gives mathematics half its power.

The purely formal conception that the three affections of terms,
determination, generality, and vagueness form a group dividing a
category of what Kant calls "functions of judgment" will be passed
by as unimportant by those who have yet to learn how important a
part purely formal conceptions may play in philosophy. Without
stopping to discuss this, it may be pointed out that the "quantity"
of propositions in logic, that is, the distribution of the first subject',
is either singular (that is, determinate, which renders it substan-
tially negligible in formal logic), or universal (that is, general), or
particular (as the mediaeval logicians say, that is, vague or indefi-
nite). It is a curious fact that in the logic of relations it is the
first and last quantifiers of a proposition that are of chief importance.
To affirm of anything that it is a horse is to yield to it every essential
character of a horse: to deny of anything that it is a horse is
vaguely to refuse to it some one or more of those essential characters
of the horse. There are, however, predicates that are unanalyzable
in a given state of intelligence and experience. These are, therefore,
determinately affirmed or denied. Thus, this same group of con-
cepts reappears. Affirmation and denial are in themselves unaffected
by these concepts, but it is to be remarked that there are cases in
which we can have an apparently definite idea of a border line
between affirmation and negation. Thus, a point of a surface may
be in a region of that surface, or out of it, or on its boundary.
This gives us an indirect and vague conception of an intermediary
between affirmation and denial in general, and consequently of an
intermediate, or nascent state, between determination and indeter-
mination. There must be a similar intermediacy between generality
and vagueness. Indeed, in an article in the seventh volume of

' Thus returning to the writer's original nomenclature, in despite ot
Monist VII, 209, where an obviously defective argument was regarded as
sufficient to determine a mere matter of terminology. But the Quality of prop-
ositions is there regarded from a point of view which seems extrinsic. I have
not had time, however, to re-explore all the ramifications of this difficult ques-
tion by the aid of existential graphs, and the statement in the text about the
last quantifier may need modification.

ISSUES OF PRAGMATICISM. 491

The Monist, pp. 205-217, there lies just beneath the surface of what
is explicitly said, the idea of an endless series of such intermediaries.
We shall find below some application for these reflections.

Character V. The Critical Common-sensist will be further dis-
tinguished from the old Scotch philosopher by the great value he
attaches to doubt, provided only that it be the weighty and noble
metal itself, and no counterfeit nor paper substitute. He is not
content to ask himself whether he does doubt, but he invents a plan
for attaining to doubt, elaborates it in detail, and then puts it
into practice, although this may involve a solid month of hard work ;
and it is only after having gone through such an examination that
he will pronounce a belief to be indubitable. Moreover, he fully
acknowledges that even then it may be that some of his indubitable
beliefs may be proved false.

The Critical Common-sensist holds that there is less danger to
heuretic science in believing too little than in believing too much.
Yet for all that, the consequences to heuretics of believing too little
may be no less than disaster.

Character VI. Critical Common-sensism may fairly lay claim
to this title for two sorts of reasons ; namely, that on the one hand
it subjects four opinions to rigid criticism: its own; that of the
Scotch school ; that of those who would base logic or metaphysics
on psychology or any other special science, the least tenable of all
the philosophical opinions that have any vogue; and that of Kant;
while on the other hand it has besides some claim to be called
Critical from the fact that it is but a modification of Kantism. The
present writer was a pure Kantist until he was forced by successive
steps into Pragmaticism. The Kantist has only to abjure from the
bottom of his heart the proposition that a thing-in- itself can, how-
ever indirectly, be conceived ; and then correct the details of Kant's
doctrine accordingly, and he will find himself to have become a
Critical Common-sensist.

Another doctrine which is involved in Pragmaticism as an
essential consequence of it, but which the writer defended (7. Spec.
Phil, Vol. II, p. 155 ad fin. 1868, and N. Am. Rev., Vol. CXIII,
>p. 449-472, 1871), before he had formulated, even in his own

492 THE MONIST.

mind, the principle of pragmaticism, is the scholastic doctrine of
realism. This is usually defined as the opinion that there are real
objects that are general, among the number being the modes of
determination of existent singulars, if, indeed, these be not the only
such objects. But the belief in this can hardly escape being accom-
panied by the acknowledgment that there are, besides, real vagues,
and especially real possibilities. For possibility being the denial
of a necessity, which is a kind of generality, is vague like any
other contradiction of a general. Indeed, it is the reality of some
possibilities that pragmaticism is most concerned to insist upon. The
article of Jan. 1878 endeavored to gloze over this point as unsuited
to the exoteric public addressed ; or perhaps the writer wavered in
his own mind. He said that if a diamond were to be formed in
a bed of cotton-wool, and were to be consumed there without ever
having been pressed upon by any hard edge or point, it would be
merely a question of nomenclature whether that diamond should be
said to have been hard or not. No doubt, this is true, except for
the abominable falsehood in the word MERELY, implying that sym-
bols are unreal. Nomenclature involves classification; and classi-
fication is true or false, and the generals to which it refers are
either reals in the one case, or figments in the other. For if the
reader will turn to the original maxim of pragmaticism at the be-
ginning of this article, he will see that the question is, not what did
happen, but whether it would have been well to engage in any line
of conduct whose successful issue depended upon whether that dia-
mond would resist an attempt to scratch it, or whether all other
logical means of determining how it ought to be classed ivould
lead to the conclusion which, to quote the very words of that article,
would be "the belief which alone could be the result of investigation
carried sufficiently far." Pragmaticism makes the ultimate intel-
lectual purport of what you please to consist in conceived condi-
tional resolutions, or their substance ; and therefore, the conditional
propositions, with their hypothetical antecedents, in which such
resolutions consist, being of the ultimate nature of meaning, must
be capable of being true, that is, of expressing whatever there be
which is such as the proposition expresses, independently of being

ISSUES OF PRAGMATICISM. 493

thought to be so in any judgment, or being represented to be so
in any other symbol of any man or men. But that amounts to say-
ing that possibility is sometimes of a real kind.

Fully to understand this, it will be needful to analyze modality,
and ascertain in what it consists. In the simplest case, the most
subjective meaning, if a person does not know that a proposition
is false, he calls it possible. If, however, he knows that it is true,
it is much more than possible. Restricting the word to its character-
istic applicability, a state of things has the Modality of the possible,
— that is, of the merely possible, — only in case the contradictory
state of things is likewise possible, which proves possibility to be
the vague modality. One who knows that Harvard University has
an office in State Street, Boston, and has impression that it is at
No. 30, but yet suspects that 50 is the number, would say "I think
it is at No. 30, but it may be at No. 50," or "it is possibly at No. 50."
Thereupon, another, who does not doubt his recollection, might
chime in, "It actually is at No. 50," or simply "it is at No. 50," or
" it is at No. 50, de inesse." Thereupon, the person who had first
asked, what the number was might say, "Since you are so positive,
it must be at No. 50," for "I know the first figure is 5. So, since you
are both certain the second is a o, why 50 it necessarily is." That
is to say, in this most subjective kind of Modality, that which is
known by direct recollection is in the Mode of Actuality, the deter-
minate mode. But when knowledge is indeterminate among alter-
natives, either there is one state of things which alone accords with
them all, when this is in the Mode of Necessity, or there is more than
one state of things that no knowledge excludes, when each of these is
in the Mode of Possibility.

Other kinds of subjective Modality refer to a Sign or Repre-
sentamen which is assumed to be true, but which does not include
the Utterer's (i. e. the speaker's, writer's, thinker's or other sym-
bolizer's) total knowledge, the different Modes being distinguished
very much as above. There are other cases, however, in which,
justifiably or not, we certainly think of Modality as objective. A
man says, "I can go to the seashore if I like." Here is implied, to
be sure, his ignorance of how he will decide to act. But this is not

!

494 THE MONIST.

the point of the assertion. It is that the complete determination of
conduct in the act not yet having taken place, the further determi-
nation df it belongs to the subject of the action regardless of ex-
ternal circumstances. If he had said, "I must go where my em-
ployers may send me," it would imply that the function of such
further determination lay elsewhere. In "You may do so and so,"
and "You must do so," the "may" has the same force as "can,"
except that in the one case freedom from particular circumstances
is in question, and in the other freedom from a law or edict. Hence
the phrase, "You may if you can'3 I must say that it is difficult for
me to preserve my respect for the competence of a philosopher
whose dull logic, not penetrating beneath the surface, leaves him to
regard such phrases as misrepresentations of the truth. So an act
of hypostatic abstraction which in itself is no violation of logic,
however it may lend itself to a dress of superstition, may regard
the collective tendencies to variableness in the world, under the
name of Chance, as at one time having their way, and at another
time overcome by the element of order; so that, for example, a
superstitious cashier, impressed by a bad dream, may say to him-
self of a Monday morning, "May be, the bank has been robbed."
No doubt, he recognizes his total ignorance in the matter. But
besides that, he has in mind the absence of any particular cause
which should protect his bank more than others that are robbed
from time to time. He thinks of the variety in the universe as
vaguely analogous to the indecision of a person, and borrows from
that analogy the garb of his thought. At the other extreme stand
those who declare as inspired, (for they have no rational proof
of what they allege), that an actuary's advice to an insurance
company is based on nothing at all but ignorance.

There is another example of objective possibility: "A pair of
intersecting rays, i. e., unlimited straight lines conceived as movable
objects, can (or may} move, without ceasing to intersect, so that
one and the same hyperboloid shall be completely covered by the
track of each of them." How shall we interpret this, remembering
that the object spoken of, the pair of rays, is a pure creation of the
Utterer's imagination, although it is required (and, indeed, forced)

ISSUES OF PRAGMATICISM. 495

to conform to the laws of space? Some minds will be better satis-
fied with a more subjective, or nominalistic, others with a more
objective, realistic interpretation. But it must be confessed on
all hands that whatever degree or kind of reality belongs to pure
space belongs to the substance of that proposition, which merely
expresses a property of space.

Let us now take up the case of that diamond which, having
been crystallized upon a cushion of jeweler's cotton, was accidentally
consumed by fire before the crystal of corundum that had been
sent for had had time to arrive, and indeed without being subjected
to any other pressure than that of the atmosphere and its own weight.
The question is, was that diamond really hard? It is certain that
no discernible actual fact determined it to be so. But is its hardness
not, nevertheless, a real fact? To say, as the article of Jan. 1878
seems to intend, that it is just as an arbitrary "usage of speech"
chooses to arrange its thoughts, is as much as to decide against
the reality of the property, since the real is that which is such as
it is regardless of how it is, at any time, thought to be. Remember
that this diamond's condition is not an isolated fact. There_js no
such__thing; and an isolated fact could hardly be real. It is an un-
severed, though presciss part of the unitary fact of nature. Being
a diamond, it was a mass of pure carbon, in the form of a more or
less transparent crystal, (brittle, and of facile octahedral cleavage,
unless it was of an unheard of variety), which, if not trimmed after
one of the fashions in which diamonds may be trimmed, took the
shape of an octahedron, apparently regular (I need not go into
minutiae), with grooved edges, and probably with some curved
faces. Without being subjected to any considerable pressure, it
could be found to be insoluble, very highly refractive, showing under
radium rays (and perhaps under "dark light" and X-rays) a pecu-
liar bluish phosphorescence, having as high a specific gravity as
realgar or orpiment, and giving off during its combustion less heat
lan any other form of carbon would have done. From some 'of
icse properties hardness is believed to be inseparable. For like it
they bespeak the high polemerization of the molecule. But how-
ever this may be, how can the hardness of all other diamonds fail

496 THE MONIST.

to bespeak some real relation among the diamonds without which
a piece of carbon would not be a diamond? Is it not a monstrous
perversion of the word and concept real to say that the accident
of the non-arrival of the corundum prevented the hardness of the
diamond from having the reality which it otherwise, with little
doubt, would have had?

At the same time, we must dismiss the idea that the occult
state of things (be it a relation among atoms or something else),
which constitutes the reality of a diamond's hardness can possibly
consist in anything but in the truth of a general conditional propo-
sition. For to what else does the entire teaching of chemistry re-
late except to the "behavior" of different possible kinds of material
substance? And in what does that behavior consist except that if
a substance of a certain kind should be exposed to an agency of a
certain kind, a certain kind of sensible result would ensue, according
to our experiences hitherto. As for the pragmaticist, it is precisely
his position that nothing else than this can be so much as meant
by saying that an object possesses a character. He is therefore
obliged to subscribe to the doctrine of a real Modality, including
real Necessity and real Possibility.

A good question, for the purpose of illustrating the nature of
Pragmaticism, is, What is Time? It is not proposed to attack those
most difficult problems connected with the psychology, the episte-
mology, or the metaphysics of Time, although it will be taken for
granted, as it must be according to what has been said, that Time
is real. The reader is only invited to the humbler question of
what we mean by Time, and not of every kind of meaning attached
to Past, Present, and Future either. Certain peculiar feelings are
associated with the three general determinations of Time ; but those
are to be sedulously put out of view. That the reference of events
to Time is irresistible will be recognized; but as to how it may
differ from other kinds of irresistibility is a question not here to be
considered. The question to be considered is simply, What is the
intellectual purport of the Past, Present, and Future? It can only
be treated with the utmost brevity.

That Time is a particular variety of objective Modality is too

ISSUES OF PRAGMATICISM. 497

obvious for argumentation. The Past consists of the sum of faits
accomplis, and this Accomplishment is the Existential Mode of Time.
For the Past really acts upon us, and that it does, not at all in the
way in which a Law or Principle influences us, but precisely as an
Existent object acts. For instance, when a Nova Stella bursts out in
the heavens, it acts upon one's eyes just as a light struck in the dark
by one's own hands would ; and yet it is an event which happened
before the Pyramids were built. A neophyte may remark that its
reaching the eyes, which is all we know, happens but a fraction of
a second before we know it. But a moment's consideration will
show him that he is losing sight of the question, which is not
whether the distant Past can act upon us immediately, but whether
it acts upon us just as any Existent does. The instance adduced
(certainly a commonplace enough fact), proves conclusively that
the mode of the Past is that of Actuality. Nothing of the sort is
true of the Future, to compass the understanding of which it is
indispensable that the reader should divest himself of his Necessi-
tarianism,— at best, but a scientific theory ,— and return to the Com-
mon-sense State of Nature. Do you never say to yourself, "I can
do this or that as well to-morrow as to-day" ? Your Necessitarian-
ism is a theoretical pseudo-belief, — a make-believe belief, — that such
a sentence does not express the real truth. That is only to stick to
proclaiming the unreality of that Time, of which you are invited,
be it reality or figment, to consider the meaning. You need not
fear to compromise your darling theory by looking out at its win-
dows. Be it true in theory or not, the unsophisticated conception is
that everything in the Future is either destined, i. e. necessitated
already, or is undecided, the contingent future of Aristotle. In
other words, it is not Actual, since it does not act except through
the idea of it, that is, as a law acts; but is either Necessary or
Possible, which are of the same mode since (as remarked above)
Negation being outside the category of modality cannot produce a
variation in Modality. As for the Present instant, it is so inscrutable
that I wonder whether no sceptic has ever attacked its reality. I
can fancy one of them dipping his pen in his blackest ink to com-
mence the assault, and then suddenly reflecting that his entire life

THE MONIST.

is in the Present, — the "living present," as we say, this instant
when all hopes and fears concerning it come to their end, this Living
Death in which we are born anew. It is plainly that Nascent State
between the Determinate and the Indeterminate that was noticed
above.

Pragmaticism consists in holding that the purport of any concept
is its conceived bearing upon our conduct. How, then, does the
Past bear upon conduct? The answer is self-evident: whenever
we set out to do anything, we "go upon," we base our conduct on facts
already known, and for these we can only draw upon our memory.
It is true that we may institute a new investigation for the purpose ;
but its discoveries will only become applicable to conduct after
they have been made and reduced to a memorial maxim. In short,
the Past is the store-house of all our knowledge.

When we say that we know that some state of things exists,
we mean that it used to exist, whether just long enough for the
news to reach the brain and be retransmitted to tongue or pen, or
longer ago. Thus, from whatever point of view we contemplate
the Past, it appears as the Existential Mode of Time.

How does the Future bear upon conduct? The answer is that
future facts are the only facts that we can, in a measure, control ;
and whatever there may be in the Future that is not amenable to
control are the things that we shall be able to infer, or should be
able to infer under favorable circumstances. There may be ques-
tions concerning which the pedulum of opinion never would cease
to oscillate, however favorable circumstances may be. But if so,
those questions are ipso facto not real questions, that is to say, are
questions to which there is no true answer to be given. It is natural
to use the future tense (and the conditional mood is but a mollified
future) in drawing a conclusion or in stating a consequence. "If
two unlimited straight lines in one plane and crossed by a third
making the sum . . . then these straight lines will meet on the side,
etc." It cannot be denied that acritical inferences may refer to
the Past in its capacity as past ; but according to Pragmaticism, the
conclusion of a Reasoning power must refer to the Future. For its
meaning refers to conduct, and since it is a reasoned conclusion

ISSUES OF PRAGMATICISM. 499

must refer to deliberate conduct, which is controllable conduct. But
the only controllable conduct is Future conduct. As for that part
of the Past that lies beyond memory, the Pragmaticist doctrine is
that the meaning of its being believed to be in connection with the
Past consists in the acceptance as truth of the conception that we
ought to conduct ourselves according to it (like the meaning of
any other belief). Thus, a belief that Christopher Columbus dis-
covered America really refers to the future. It is more difficult,
it must be confessed, to account for beliefs that rest upon the double
evidence of feeble but direct memory and upon rational inference.
The difficulty does not seem insuperable; but it must be passed by.

What is the bearing of the Present instant upon conduct?

Introspection is wholly a matter of inference. One is imme- *->.
diately conscious of his Feelings, no doubt; but not that they are
feelings of an ego. The self is only inferred. There is no time in
the Present for any inference at all, least of all for inference con-
cerning that very instant. Consequently the present object must
be an external object, if there be any objective reference in it. The
attitude of the Present is either conative or perceptive. Supposing 4

it to be perceptive, the perception must be immediately known as
external, — not indeed in the sense in which a hallucination is not
external, but in the sense of being present regardless of the per-
ceiver's will or wish. Now this kind of externality is conative
externality. Consequently, the attitude of the present instant (ac- ^

cording to the testimony of Common Sense, which is plainly adopted •

throughout) can only be a Conative attitude. The consciousness
of the present is then that of a struggle over what shall be ; and
thus we emerge from the study with a confirmed belief that it is
the Nascent State of the Actual.

But how is Temporal Modality distinguished from other Ob-
jective Modality? Not by any general character since Time is unique
and sui generis. In other words there is only one Time. Sufficient
attention has hardly been called to the surpassing truth of this for
Time as compared with its truth for Space. Time, therefore, can
only be identified by brute compulsion. But we must not go further.

MILFORD. PA. CHARLES S. PEIRCE.

CHINESE OCCULTISM.

T)ELIEF in mysterious agencies characterises a certain period

D

in the religious development of every nation. Even the Jews,

distinguished among the Semites by their soberness, consulted Yah-
veh through the Urim and Thummim, an oracle the nature of which
is no longer definitely known. Kindred institutions among most
nations are based upon primitive animism, or a belief in spirits, but
in China we have a very peculiar mixture of logical clearness with
fanciful superstitions. Chinese occultism is based upon a rational,
nay a philosophical, or even mathematical, conception of existence.
An original rationalism has here engendered a most luxurious growth
of mysticism, and so the influence of occultism upon the people of
the Middle Kingdom has been prolonged beyond measure.

THE YIH SYSTEM.

Among the ancient traditions of China there is a unique system
of symbols called the yih (M ) , i- e., "permutations" or "changes,"

THE TWO PRIMARY FORMS* (LIANG l).

THE YANG

THE YIH

Old form

o

Modern form

* It is difficult to translate the term Liang I. One might call the two
/ "elements," if that word were not used in another sense. The two / are
commonly referred to as "Elementary Forms" or "Primary Forms." De
Groot speaks of them as "Regulators."

CHINESE OCCULTISM. 5<DI

which consists of all possible combinations of two elements, called
Hang i (ffi $i), i. e., the two elementary forms, which are the nega-
tive principle, yin (|^), and the positive principle, yang (R|). The
four possible configurations of yang and yin in groups of two are
called ssu shiang (0 l&), i. e., "the four [secondary] figures"; all
further combinations of the elementary forms into groups of three
or more are called kwa (&). In English, groups of three elementary
forms are commonly called trigrams, and groups of six, hexagrams.

The book in which the permutations of yang and yin are re-
corded, was raised in ancient times to the dignity of a canonical
writing, a class of literature briefly called king in Chinese. Hence
the book is known under the title of Yih King.

The Yih King is one of the most ancient, most curious, and most
mysterious documents in the world. It is more mysterious than the
pyramids of Egypt, more ancient than the Vedas of India, more
curious than the cuneiform inscriptions of Babylon.

In the earliest writings, the yang is generally represented as
a white disk and the yin as a black one ; but later on the former is
replaced by one long dash denoting strength, the latter by two short
dashes considered as a broken line to represent weakness. Disks
are still used for diagrams, as in the Map of Ho and the Table of
Loh, but the later method was usually employed, even before Con-
fucius, for picturing kwa combinations.

The trigrams are endowed with symbolical meaning according
to the way in which yin and yang lines are combined. They apply
to all possible relations of life and so their significance varies.

Since olden times, the yih system has been considered a phil-
osophical and religious panacea ; it is believed to solve all problems,
to answer all questions, to heal all ills. He who understands the
yih is supposed to possess the key to the riddle of the universe.

The yih is capable of representing all combinations of existence.
The elements of the yih, yang the positive principle and yin the
negative principle, stand for the elements of being. Yang means
"bright," and yin, "dark." Yang is the principle of heaven; yin,
the principle of the earth. Yang is the sun, yin is the moon.
Yang is masculine and active ; yin is feminine and passive. The

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502

THE MONIST.

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CHINESE OCCULTISM.

503

former is motion ; the latter is rest. Yang is strong, rigid, lordlike ;
yin is mild, pliable, submissive, wifelike. The struggle between,
and the different mixture of, these two elementary contrasts, con-
dition all the differences that prevail, the state of the elements, the
nature of things, and also the character of the various personalities
as well as the destinies of human beings.

The Yih King (JJ 3$) is very old, for we find it mentioned as
early as the year 1122 B. C., in the official records of the Chou
dynasty, where we read that three different recensions of the work

THE EIGHT KWA FIGURES AND THE BINARY SYSTEM.

03

" a

NAME

TRANSCRIP-
TION

MEANINGS Of THE CHINESE
WORD*

KWA

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to come out; to rise, sunrise; vig-
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to weigh; to barter; permeable.

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to separate.

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to quake; to thunder.

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sun

peaceful; a stand or pedestal.

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a pit; to dig a pit.

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a limit; to stop; perverse.

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earth; to nourish; yielding.

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0

•A native student of the Yih system does not connect the usual meaning' of the word
with the names of the eight Kwas, and we insert here a translation of the character only for
the sake of completeness.

were extant, the Lien Shan, the Kwei Ts'ang and the Yih of Chou,1
of which, however, the last one alone has been preserved.

This Yih of Chou, our present Yih King, exhibits two arrange-
ments of the kwa figures, of which one is attributed to their origi-

1 Lien Shan means "mountain range" and by some is supposed to be a
nom de plume of Shen Nung (i. e. "divine husbandman"), the mythical ruler
of ancient China (2737-2697 B. C), successor to Fuh-Hi. Others identify
Lien Shan with Fuh-Hi. Kwei Ts'ang means "reverted hoard" and may
have been simply an inversion of the Lien Shan arrangement. Its invention
is assigned to the reign of Hwang Ti, "the Yellow Emperor," the third of the
three rulers, (2697-2597 B. C), a kind of a Chinese Numa Pompilius. The
Chou redaction of the Yih, which is the latest one, is named after the Chou
dynasty.

504

THE MONIST.

nator, the legendary Fuh-Hi,2 the other to Wen Wang.3 Fuh-Hi
is also called Feng,4 "wind," and Tai Ho,5 "the great celestial,"
and he lived, according to Chinese records, from 2852 to 2738 B. C.
It speaks well for the mathematical genius of the ancient found-
ers of Chinese civilisation that the original order of the yih, attributed
to Fuh-Hi, corresponds closely to Leibnitz' Binary System of arith-
metic. If we let the yin represent o and the yang, I, it appears
that the eight trigrams signify the first eight figures from 0-7,
arranged in their proper arithmetical order, and read from below
upward. Leibnitz knew the yih and speaks of it in terms of high

FUH-HI.

appreciation. Indeed it is not impossible that it suggested to him
his idea of a binary system.

While Fuh-Hi's system exhibits a mathematical order, Wen
Wang's is based upon considerations of occultism. It stands to
reason that Fuh-Hi (by which name we understand that school,
or founder of a school, that invented the yih) may not have grasped
the full significance of his symbols in the line of abstract thought
and especially in mathematics, but we must grant that he was a

4M,

CHINESE OCCULTISM.

505

mathematical genius, if not in fact, certainly potentially. As to
further details our information is limited to legends.

The case is different with Wen Wang, for his life is inscribed
on the pages of Chinese history and his character is well known.

The personal name of Wen Wang (i. e., the "scholar-king")
is Hsi-Peh, which means ''Western Chief." He was the Duke of
Chou, one of the great vassals of the empire, and lived from 1231
to 1135 B. C. In his time the emperor was Chou-Sin, a degenerate
debauche and a tyrant, the last of the Yin dynasty, who oppressed
the people by reckless imposition and provoked a just rebellion.
Wen Wang offended him and was long kept in prison, but his son

THE TRIGRAMS AS FAMILY RELATIONS.

Eldest
Son

Second
Son

Youngest
Son

Eldest
Daughter

Second
Daughter

Youngest
Daughter

Fa, surnamed Wu Wang, being forced into a conflict with Chou-
Sin,. overthrew the imperial forces. The tyrant died in the flames of
his palace which had been ignited by his own hands. Wu Wang6
assumed the government and became the founder of the Chou dy-
nasty which reigned from 1122 until 225 B. C.

Wen Wang was a man of earnest moral intentions, but with
a hankering after occultism. During his imprisonment he occupied
himself in his enforced leisure with the symbols of the yih, and
found much comfort in the divinations which he believed to dis-
cover in them. When he saw better days he considered that the

8Wu Wang was born 1169 B. C. ; he became emperor in 1122 B. C. and
died 1116 B. C.

5O6 THE MONIST.

prophecies were fulfilled, and his faith in their occult meaning be-
came more and more firmly established.7

The eight permutations of the trigrams apparently form the
oldest part of the Yih King. They have been an object of contem-
plation since time immemorial and their significance is set forth in
various ways. The trigrams consisting of three yang lines are
called the unalloyed yang, and of three yin lines, the unalloyed yin.
In the mixed groups the place of honor is at the bottom, and if they
are conceived as family relations, the unalloyed yang represents

N.

s.

ARRANGEMENT OF TRIGRAMS ACCORDING TO FUH-HI.

the father and the unalloyed yin, the mother. The three sons are
represented by the trigrams containing only one yang; the eldest
son having yang in the lowest place, the second in the middle, and
the third on top. The corresponding trigrams with only one yin
line represent in the same way the three daughters.

The trigrams are also arranged both by Fuh-Hi and Wen Wang
in the form of a mariner's compass. In the system of Fuh-Hi the

7 Mayers, Chinese Reader's Manual, p. 177.

CHINESE OCCULTISM.

507

unalloyed yin stands at the north, the unalloyed yang at the south.
The others are so arranged that those which correspond to I, 2, 3,
of Leibnitz' Binary System proceed from north through west to
south in regular order, while 4, 5, 6, start from south taking the
corresponding places in the east. In this mathematical arrange-
ment we always have the opposed configurations in opposite quarters,
so as to have for each place in every opposite kwa a yang line cor-
respond with a yin line and vice versa; while if they are expressed

N.

Winter

GO

I'1!

II =
II

E,

ARRANGEMENT OF TRIGRAMS ACCORDING TO WEN WANG.

in numbers of the binary system, their sums are always equal to
seven.

Wen Wang rearranged the trigrams and abandoned entirely
the mathematical order attributed to Fuh-Hi. The following quo-
tation from the Yih King evinces the occultism which influenced
his thoughts:

"All things endowed with life have their origin in chan, as chan corre-
sponds to the east. They are in harmonious existence in siuen because siuen
corresponds to the southeast. Li is brightness and renders all things visible

5O8 THE MONIST.

to one another, being the kwa which represents the south. Kw'un is the earth
from which all things endowed with life receive food. Tui corresponds to
mid-autumn. Ch'ien is the kwa of the northwest. K'an is water, the kwa of
of the exact north representing distress, and unto it everything endowed with
life reverts. Kan is the kwa of the northeast where living things both rise
and terminate."

Since this new arrangement is absolutely dependent on occult
considerations, the grouping must appear quite arbitrary from the
standpoint of pure mathematics. It is natural that with the growth
of mysticism this arbitrariness increases and the original system
is lost sight of.

The yin and yang elements are supposed to be the product of
a differentiation from the t'ai chih, "the grand limit," i. e., the ab-
solute or ultimate reality of all existence, which, containing both
yang and yin in potential efficiency, existed in the beginning. The
grand limit evolved the pure yang as ether or air, which precipi-
tated the Milky Way, shaping the visible heaven or firmament;
while the yin coagulated and sank down to form the earth. But the
earth contained enough of the yang to produce heat and life. Some
unalloyed yang particles rose to form the sun, while correspondingly
other unalloyed yin particles produced the moon, the two great lumi-
naries, which in their turn begot the fixed stars.

THE TABLET OF DESTINY.

At the beginning of Chinese history stands a tablet which in
some mysterious way is supposed to be connected with an explana-
tion of the universe. It has been reconstructed by later Chinese
thinkers and is pictured in the hands of Fuh-Hi as an arrangement
of the kwa figures preserved in the Yih King. Considering the
several traces of Babylonian traditions in ancient Chinese literature
and folklore, would it not be justifiable to identify the tablet of
Fuh-Hi with the ancient Babylonian "Tablet of Destiny" mentioned
in the Enmeduranki Text, a copy of which was discovered in the
archives of Asurbanipal20 and is supposed to contain the "Mystery
of Heaven and Earth?"

20K2486 and ^364; cf. Zimmern, KAT8 533.

CHINESE OCCULTISM. 509

Enmedurankl, king of Sippar, is the seventh of the aboriginal
kings, and he declares that he received the divine tablet "from Ami,
[Bel, and Ea]."21

Chinese sages have their own interpretation of the phrase "the
mystery of heaven and earth." They would at once associate the
words "heaven" and "earth" with the two opposing principles yang
and yin, and the question is whether among the ancient Sumerians
there was not a similar tendency prevalent. It seems to be not im-
possible that the Chinese tablet in the hands of Fuh-Hi is the same
as the "Tablet of Destiny" of the Sumerians, and when some Assy-
riologist has informed himself of the primitive Chinese conception
of this mysterious tablet, he may be able to throw some additional
light on the subject.

DIVINATION.

An explanation of the universe which derives all distinctions
between things, conditions, relations, etc., from differences of mix-
ture, must have appeared very plausible to the ancient sages of
China, and we appreciate their acumen when we consider that even
to-day advanced Western scientists of reputation attempt to explain
the universe as a congeries of force-centers, acting either by attrac-
tion or repulsion in analogy to positive and negative electricity.
On the ground of this fact the educated Chinese insist with more
than a mere semblance of truth, that the underlying idea of the
Chinese world-conception is fully borne out and justified by the
results of Western science.

While it is obvious that the leading idea of the yih is quite
scientific, we observe that as soon .as the Chinese thinkers tried to
)ply it a priori without a proper investigation of cause and effect,
icy abandoned more and more the abstract (and we may say, the
>urely mathematical) conception of the yang and yin, fell victims
to occultism, and used the yih for divination purposes. When we
compare the vagaries of the occultism of the yih with the accom-

* Anu, Bel, and Ea are the Sumerian trinity. The words Bel and Ea are
illegible on the tablet and have been restored by an unequivocal emendation.
A doubtful word of the tablet has been translated by "omen" which pre-
supposes that the translator regards the tablet as a means of divination.

THE MONIST.

plishments of Western science, we may feel very wise and superior,
but we should not forget that it was the same fallacious argument
of wrong analogy which produced in China the many superstitious
practices of the yih, and in the history of our civilisation, astrology,
alchemy, and magic. These pseudo-sciences were taken seriously
in the world of thought throughout the Middle Ages and began to
be abolished only after the Reformation with the rise of genuine
astronomy, genuine chemistry, and genuine nature science. If the

A DIVINATION OUTFIT.

Chinese are wrong we must remember that there was a time when
we made the same mistake.

The Chinese outfit for divination consists of fifty stalks called
"divining-sticks" and six small oblong blocks to represent the hexa-
grams. These blocks are not unlike children's building-blocks, but
they bear on two adjoining sides incisions dividing the oblong faces
into equal sections, so as to give the surface the appearance of a
yin figure. The sticks are made of stalks of the milfoil plant (ptar-
mica sibirica) which is cultivated on the tomb of Confucius and re-
garded as sacred.

CHINESE OCCULTISM. 511

Pious people consult the oracle on all important occasions. They
are first careful to make themselves clean, and then assume a calm
and reverential attitude of mind. The diviner then takes out one
stick and places it in a holder on the center of the table. This single
stalk is called "the grand limit" (t'ai chih), the ultimate cause of
existence. He next lifts the forty-nine remaining sticks above his
forehead with his right hand, and divides them at random into two
parts, at the same time holding his breath and concentrating his
thoughts on the question to be answered. The sticks in the right
hand are then placed on the table, and one is taken out from them
and placed between the fourth and fifth fingers of the left hand.
The three groups are now called heaven, earth and man. The left-
hand group is then counted with the right hand in cycles of eight,
and the number of the last group yields the lower trigram of the
answer, called the inner complement. This number is counted after
the oldest order of the eight trigrams, viz., that of Fuh-Hi corre-
sponding to the inverted binary arrangement. The upper trigram,
called the outer complement, is determined in the same way.

After the hexagram is determined, one special line is selected
by the aid of the divining-sticks in the same way as before, except
that instead of counting in cycles of eight, the diviner now counts
in cycles of six. Having thus established the hexagram and a
special line in it, he next consults the Yih King which contains a
definite meaning for each hexagram as a whole, and also for each
single line ; and this meaning is made the basis of the divine answer.

It is obvious that this complicated process presupposes a sim-
pler one which, however, must have been in use in pre-historic times,
for as far as Chinese history dates back the divining stalks and the
kwa system are referred to in the oldest documents.

URIM AND THUMMIM.

The Chinese method of divination may help us to understand
the Urim and Thummim of the Hebrews which are so ancient that
details of their method are practically forgotten.

We notice first that the Urim and Thummim are two sets of
symbols apparently forming a contrast similar to that of yin and

512 THE MONIST.

yang. It is not probable that they were a set of twelve gems repre-
senting the twelve tribes of Israel. Secondly, like the yin and yang,
the two sets must have been a plurality of elements and not only
two symbols as is sometimes assumed; and thirdly, they served the
purpose of divination, for they are referred to in connection with
the ephod which must have had something to do with the determin-
ing oracle.

The Urim and Thummim* are translated in the Septuagintf
by "manifestation and truth," or, as it has been rendered in Eng-
lish, "light and perfection." It appears that the vowel in the first
word is wrong, and we ought to read Orim, which is the plural
form of Or, "light," and might be translated by "the shining things."
If Thummim is to be derived from the root THAMAM, its vocali-
sation ought to be thamim (not thummim) and would mean "the
completed things."

We cannot doubt that the Urim and Thummim form a con-
trast, and if the Urim represent "light" or yang, the Thummim
would represent "darkness" or yin, the former being compared to
the rise of the sun, the latter to the consummation of the day.

Sometimes the answer of the Urim and Thummim is between
two alternatives (as in i Sam. xiv. 36 ff), some times a definite reply
is given which would presuppose a more or less complicated system
similar to the answers recorded in the Yih King. In the history
of Saul (iSam. x. 22) the answer comes out, "Behold, he hath
hid hmself among the stuff," and in the time of the Judges (Judges
xx. 28) the question is asked about the advisability of a raid
against the tribe of Benjamin, and the oracle declares, "Go up ; for
to-morrow I will deliver them into thine hand." On other occa-
sions the oracle does not answer at all,$ and its silence is interpreted
as due to the wrath of God.

The answer received by consulting the Urim and Thummim
was regarded as the decision of God, and was actually called the
voice of God. This view seems to have led in later times, when
the process of divination was no longer understood, to the assump-

J See Sam. xiv. 37 and xxviii. 6.

CHINESE OCCULTISM. 513

tion that Yahveh's voice could be heard in the Holy of Holies, a
misinterpretation which is plainly recognisable in the story of the
high priest Eleazar (Num. vii. 89).

The Urim and Thummim are frequently mentioned in close con-
nection with the ephod which has been the subject of much dis-
cussion. It is commonly assumed that the word is used in two
senses, first as an article of apparel and secondly as a receptacle
for Urim and Thummim. Unless we can find an interpretation
which shows a connection between the two, we can be sure not to
have rightly understood the original significance of this mysterious
article. The description of the ephod in Exodus ii. 28, (an unques-
tionably postexilic passage) is .irreconcilable with the appearance,
use or function which this curious object must have possessed ac-
cording 'to our historical sources, and the latter alone can be re-
garded as reliable. After considering all the passages in which the
ephod is mentioned we have come to the conclusion that it was a
pouch worn by the diviner who hung it around his loins using the
string as a girdle.

The original meaning of ephod is "girdle" and the verb aphad
means "to put on, to gird." David, a strong believer in the Urim
and Thummim, danced before the Lord "girded with an ephod,"
and we must assume that according to the primitive fashion the
diviner was otherwise naked. Hence he incurred the contempt of
his wife Michal whose piety did not go so far as the king's in wor-
shiping Yahveh in this antiquated manner.

The main significance of the ephod in connection with the Urim
and Thummim was to serve as a receptacle for the lots, and so it
may very well have become customary to make it of a more costly
and enduring material in the form of a vase. This will explain
those passages in which the ephod is spoken of as being made of
gold and standing on the altar, as where we are informed that the
sword of Goliath had been deposited as a trophy wrapped in a
mantle "behind the ephod."

There are other passages in which "ephod" seems to be iden-
tical with an idol, but if our interpretation be accepted there is no

514 THE MONIST.

difficulty in this, for the receptacle of the Urim and Thummim may
very well have come to be regarded as an object of worship.

It is difficult to say whether the ephod is identical with the
khoshen, the breastplate of the high priest, which in later postexilic
usage was ornamented with twelve precious stones representing the
twelve tribes of Israel. It is sure, however, that the Urim and
Thummim cannot be identified with the twelve jewels, and the
Hebrew words plainly indicate that they were placed inside as into
a pouch. In Lev. xiii. 8 the verb nathan el, "to put into," is used
and not nathan 'al, "to put upon."

The breastplate of the high priest seems to be the same as
what is called in Babylonian history the "tables of judgment," which
also were worn on the breast. But the identification does not seem
convincing. We would have to assume that the ephod was first
worn around the loins after the fashion of a loin cloth and that later
in a more civilised age when the priests were dressed in sacerdotal
robes, it was suspended from the shoulders and hung upon the
breast.

After Solomon's time there is no longer any historical record of
the use of the Urim and Thummim. It seems certain that in the
post-exilic age the rabbis knew no more about it than we do to-day
and regretted the loss of this special evidence of grace. They sup-
posed their high priests must be no longer fit to consult the oracle
(Esdras ii. 63; Neh. vii. 65) and Josephus states (Antiq. iii. 8-9)
that two hundred years before his time, it had ceased. According
to common tradition, however, it was never reintroduced into the
temple service after the exile.

While Josephus identified the Urim and Thummim with the
twelve jewels in the breastplate of the high priest, Philo* claims
that they were pictures exhibited in the embroidery of the breast-
plate representing the symbols of light and truth. His conception
is untenable, but it is noteworthy because his view seems to be in-
fluenced by his knowledge of the sacerdotal vestments of Egypt.
We are told that the high priest in his capacity as judge used to
wear a breastplate bearing the image of truth or justice. One such

* De vita Mosis, p. 670 C; 671, D. E. ; De Monarchic, p. 824, A.

CHINESE OCCULTISM. 515

shield has been found, upon which were two figures recognisable
by the emblems on their heads: one with a solar disk as Ra, the
sun-god or light, the other with a feather, as Maat or truth. If the
Urim and Thummim were not plural and were not contrasts, and if
we did not know too well that they were placed in an ephod, Philo's
interpretation would have much to recommend itself. Perhaps he
and also the Septuagint were under Egyptian influence.

While we do not believe that the Urim and Thummim were
exactly like the yang and yin we are fully convinced that the Chinese
method of divination throws some light upon the analogous Hebrew
practice and will help us to understand the meaning of the terms.
If the two systems are historically connected, which is not quite
impossible, we 'must assume that they were differentiated while yet
in their most primitive forms.

P'AN-KU.

The basic idea of the yih philosophy was so convincing that it al-
most obliterated the Taoist cosmogony of P'an-Ku who is said to have
chiseled the world out of the rocks of eternity. Though the legend is
not held in high honor by the literati, it contains some features of
interest which have not as yet been pointed out and deserve at least
an incidental comment.

P'an-Ku is written in two ways: one8 means in literal trans-
lations, "basin ancient," the other "basin solid."9 Both are homo-
phones, i. e., they are pronounced the same way ; and the former may
be preferred as the original and correct spelling. Obviously the
name means "aboriginal abyss," or in the terser German, Urgrund,
and we have reason to believe it to be a translation of the Babylonian
Tiamat, "the Deep."

The Chinese legend tells us that P'an-Ku's bones changed to
rocks ; his flesh to earth ; his marrow, teeth and nails to metals ; his
hair to herbs and trees ; his veins to rivers ; his breath to wind ; and
lis four limbs became pillars marking the four corners of the world,
-which is a Chinese version not only of the Norse myth of the
riant Ymir, but also of the Babylonian story of Tiamat.

5l6 THE MONIST.

Illustrations of P'an-Ku represent him in the company of super-
natural animals that symbolise old age or immortality, viz., the
tortoise and the crane; sometimes also the dragon, the emblem of
power, and the phenix, the emblem of bliss.

* * *

When the earth had thus been shaped from the body of P'an-
Ku, we are told that three great rulers successively governed the
world : first the celestial, then the terrestrial, and finally the human
sovereign. They were followed by Yung-Ch'eng and Sui-Jen (i. e.,
fire-man) the latter being the Chinese Prometheus, who brought the
fire down from heaven and taught man its various uses.

The Prometheus myth is not indigenous to Greece, where it
received the artistically classical form under which it is best known
to us. The name, which by an ingenious afterthought is explained
as "the fore thinker," is originally the Sanskrit pramantha10 and
means "twirler" or "fire-stick," being the rod of hard wood which
produced fire by rapid rotation in a piece of soft wood.

We cannot deny that the myth must have been known also in
Mesopotamia, the main center of civilisation between India and
Greece, and it becomes probable that the figure Sui-Jen has been
derived from the same prototype as the Greek Prometheus.

THE FIVE ELEMENTS.

Occultism dominated the development of thought during the
Middle Ages of China not less than in Europe, and here again in
the conception of the elements we find traces of a common origin
in both the East and West.

The Chinese speak of five elements: water, fire, wood, metal,
and earth ; while, according to the ancient sages of Hellas and India,
there are but four : water, fire, earth, and air. This latter view also

10 See Steinthal's "The original Form of the Legend of Prometheus"
which forms and appendix to Goldziher's Mythology Among the Hebrews,
translated by Russell Martineau, London. 1877.

Mantha is derived from the same root as the German word mangeln, "to
torture," and one who forces (viz. Agni, the god of fire) is called prama-
thyu-s "the fire-robber." The Sanskrit name in its Greek form is Prometheus,
whose nature of fire-god is still recognisable in the legend.

CHINESE OCCULTISM.

517

(although in a later age) has migrated to China, where it is com-
monly accepted among the Buddhists, but has been modified in so
far as ether has been superadded so as to make the elements of the
Buddhist-Chinese conception equal in number to the older enumera-
tion which we may call the Taoist view.

CHINESE. EUROPEAN. STUPA FORM. MEMORIAL POLE

DIFFERENT REPRESENTATIONS OF THE ELEMENTS.

[The proportions of the several heights are deemed important, and are as
follows: the square, 10; the circle, 9; the triangle, 7; the crescent, 2; the gem,
6. When built in the form of a stupa, the square changes into a cube, the circle
into a globe, the triangle into a four-sided pyramid, and the crescent and gem
also into solid bodies. The globe retains its proper dimensions but is, as it
were, pressed into the cube and the pyramid; the pyramid is frequently
changed into an artistically carved roof. The Mediaeval European conception
is obviously not original.

That the Buddhist conception of the five elements has been im-
ported to China from India, is proved beyond question by the fact

THE MONIST.

TIBETAN STUPA.

[This illustration is reproduced from the current number of the
East of Asia, an illustrated magazine printed in Shanghai, China.

The monument represents the five elements, but its shape is no
longer exact. The upper part of the cube shows a formation of steps,
not unlike the Babylonian zikkurat or staged tower. The globe is no
longer a true sphere, and the pyramid has been changed into a pointed
cone, so slender as to be almost a pole. The monument is probably
used as a mausoleum.]

CHINESE OCCULTISM.

519

that the Chinese diagrams are frequently marked with their San-
skrit terms. It is strange that the symbolic diagrams are more
nearly identical than their interpretations. Earth is represented
by a square, water by a sphere, fire by a triangle, air by a crescent,

GATEWAY TO BUDDHIST MONASTERY, PEKIN.

A further development of the Stupa of the five elements.

[The cube has been changed into a roofed house; the sphere has
assumed the shape of a Chinese cap, the pyramid is adorned with a
peculiar ornament imitative of a cover, and the crescent has been
changed into a flower-like knob, as has also the gem which surmounts
the whole.]

520 THE MONIST.

and ether by a gem surmounting the whole. The two upper symbols
are conceived as one in the treatises of the mediaeval alchemy of
Europe, and serve there as the common symbol of air. The symbol
ether is commonly called by its Sanskrit term mani, which literally
means "gem," and in popular imagination is endowed with magic
power.

The five elements are also represented by memorial poles which
on the Chinese All Souls' Day are erected at the tombs of the dead,
on which occasion the grave is ornamented with lanterns, and a
torch is lit at evening.

All over the interior of Asia so far as it is dominated by Chi-
nese civilisation, we find stupas built in the shape of the symbols
of the five elements, and their meaning is interpreted in the sense
that the body of the dead has been reduced to its original elements.
We must not, however, interpret this idea in a materialistic s*ense,
for it is meant to denote an absorption into the All and a return
to the origin and source of life.

It is noticeable that this reverence of the elements as divine is
a well-known feature of ancient Mazdaism, the faith of the Persians,
and is frequently alluded to by Herodotus in his description of
Persian customs. The desire not to desecrate the elements causes
the Persians to regard burial and cremation as offensive. They
deposit their dead in the Tower of Silence, leaving them there to
the vultures, whereby the pollution by the corpse either of earth
or of fire is avoided.

The Taoist view of the elements is different from the Buddhist
conception, and we may regard it as originally and typically Chi-
nese. At any rate it is full of occultism and constitutes an impor-
tant chapter in the mystic lore of China. According to this view,
the five elements are water, fire, wood, metal, and earth.* The knowl-
edge of these elements, legend tells us, is somehow connected with
the marks on the shell of the sacred tortoise which, having risen from
the river Loh, appeared to Ts'ang-Hieh (Mayers, Ch. R. M., I, 756).
Tsou-Yen, a philosopher who lived in the fourth century B. C,

CHINESE OCCULTISM. 521

wrote a treatise on cosmogony in which the five elements play an
important part (Mayers, Ch. R. M., I, 746).

The five elements also figure prominently in "The Great Plan,"11
which is an ancient imperial manifesto on the art of good govern-
ment. There it is stated that like everything else they are produced
by the yang and yin, being the natural results of that twofold breath
which will operate favorably or unfavorably upon the living or the
dead according to the combination in which they are mixed. All
misfortunes are said to arise from a disturbance of the five elements
in a given situation, and thus the Chinese are very careful not to
interfere with nature or cause any disturbance of natural conditions.
We are told in "The Great Plan"12 that "in olden times K'wan
dammed up the inundating waters and so disarranged the five ele-
ments. The Emperor of Heaven was aroused to anger and would
not give him the nine divisions of the Great Plan. In this way the
several relations of society were disturbed, and [for punishment]
he was kept in prison until he died." K'wan's misfortune has re-
mained a warning example to the Chinese. In their anxiety not to
disturb the proper mixture in which the five elements should be
combined they pay great attention to those pseudo-scientific pro-
fessors who determine the prevalence of the several elements, not
by studying facts but by interpreting some of the most unessential
features, for instance, the external shape of rocks and plants. Pointed
crags mean "fire" ; gently rounded mountains, "metal" ; cones and
sugar-loaf rocks represent trees, and mean "wood" ; and square
plateaus denote "earth" ; but if the plateau be irregular in shape
so as to remind one of the outlines of a lake, it stands for "water."
It would lead us too far to enter into further details ; at the same time
it would be difficult to lay down definite rules, as there is much
scope left to the play of the imagination, and it is certain that, while
doctors may disagree in the Western world, the geomancers of
China have still more opportunity for a great divergence of opinion.

The elements are supposed to conquer one another according

UA chapter in the Shu King, translated into English by James Legge.
'S. B. E., vol. Ill, 137.

a See 5. B. E., Ill, 139.

522

THE MON1ST.

to a definite law. We are told that wood conquers earth, earth
conquers water, water conquers fire, fire conquers metal, and metal
conquers wood. This rule which is preserved by Liu An of the
second century B. C. is justified by Pan Ku, a historian of the
second century A. Decompiler of the books of the era of the Han
dynasty, as follows:

"By wood can be produced fire, by fire can be produced earth [in other
words, wood through fire is changed to ashes] ; from earth can be produced
metal [i. e., by mining] ; from metal can be produced water [they can be
changed through heat to a liquid state] ; from water can be produced wood
[plants]. When fire heats metal, it makes it liquid [i. e., it changes it into

THE FIVE ELEMENTS AND THEIR INTERRELATION.

ELEMBNTS

PARENT

CHILD

ENEMY

FRIEND

PLANET

water's

metal

wood

earth

fire

Mercury

fire's

wood

earth

water

metal

Mars

wood's

water

fire

metal

earth

Jupiter

metal's

earth

water

fire

wood

Venus

earth's

fire

metal

wood

water

Saturn

the state of the element water]. When water destroys fire it operates ad-
versely upon the very element by which it is produced. Fire produces earth,
yet earth counteracts water. No one can do anything against these phenom-
ena, for the power which causes the five elements to counteract each other
is according to the natural dispensation of heaven and earth. Large quanti-
ties prevail over small quantities, hence water conquers fire. Spirituality
prevails over materiality, the non-substance over substance, thus fire conquers
metal ; hardness conquers softness, hence metal conquers wood ; density is
superior to incoherence, therefore, wood conquers earth ; solidity conquers
insolidity, therefore earth conquers water."

Besides being interrelated as parent and offspring, or as friend
and enemy, the five elements are represented by the five planets, so
that water corresponds to Mercury, fire to Mars, wood to Jupiter,
metal to Venus, and earth to Saturn.

CHINESE OCCULTISM.

523

The yih system being cosmic in its nature, has been used by
the Chinese sages to represent the universe. The first attempt in
this direction is Fuh-Hi's diagram in compass form representing
the four quarters and four intermediary directions.

The system was changed by Wen Wang who rearranged the
eight trigrams but retained the fundamental idea. It was supposed
to have been revealed to Fuh-Hi on the back of a tortoise, but later
sages superadded to the fundamental idea further characteristics
of the universe, according to their more complicated knowledge of
science and occultism.

THE MYSTIC TABLET.

We reproduce here a mystic tablet of Tibetan workmanship,
which, however, reflects the notions prevailing over the whole Chi-
nese empire. The kwa tablet lies on the back of the tortoise, pre-
sumably the same as was supposed to have been present when P'an-
Ku chiseled the world from out of the rocks of eternity — and
certainly the same tortoise which made its appearance in the Loh
river to reveal the secret of the kwa to Fuh-Hi.

In the center of our kwa tablet is the magic square written in
Tibetan characters, which is the same as that represented in dots

524

THE MONIST.

in the so-called "Writing of Loh."13 It is also depicted as resting
in its turn on the carapace of a smaller tortoise.

This magic square is surrounded by the twelve animals of the
duodenary cycle, representing both the twelve double-hours of the
day, and the twelve months of the year. In the left lower center
is represented the rat which, in passing around to the left, is followed
in order by the ox, tiger, hare, dragon, serpent, horse, goat, monkey,
cock, dog, and boar. The symbols of the days are : a sun for Sunday,
a crescent for Monday; a red eye for Tuesday (red light of the
planet Mars) ; a hand holding a coin for Wednesday (indicating
the function of the god Mercury) ; a thunderbolt for Thursday

A TYPICAL CHINESE GRAVE.

[The dead are protected against the evil influence of unfavorably
mixed elements in the surroundings of the grave by a horseshoe-shaped
wall. Cf. pp. 53I-2-]

(sacred to Marduk, Jupiter, Thor, the thunder-god) ; a buckle for
Friday (day of Frigga or Venus) ; and a bundle for Saturday.

The duodenary cycle of animals is surrounded by various em-
blems indicating lucky and unlucky days. Among these we can
discover gems, buckles, thunderbolts, various limbs of the body,
triangles, five-spots, links of a chain, luck symbols, and swastikas.

18 See the author's pamphlet, Chinese Philosophy, p. 19.

"The table has been reproduced from Waddell's Buddhism of Tibet, p.
453. Students who take the trouble to enter into further details are warned
that in Waddell's table, by some strange mistake, the position of the trigrams
tui and chan, in the east and in the west, has been reversed, a mistake which
we have corrected in our reproduction.

CHINESE OCCULTISM. 525

They surround the eight trigrams which are placed according to
the arrangement of Wen Wang. The kwa in the lower part repre-
sents north and winter; in the upper part, the south and summer;
toward the right, west and autumn; and toward the left, east and
spring. The kwa in the lower right hand corner represents heaven ;
in the lower left, mountain ; the upper left, air or wind ; and in the
right upper corner, earth.

SYSTEMS OF ENUMERATION.

The twelve animals which are pictured on our Tibetan tablet
are a curious relic of prehistoric civilisation. They represent at once
the twelve months, the twelve divisions of the zodiac, and the twelve
double hours of the day. Kindred systems of designating duodeci-
mal divisions of the cosmos, both in time and space, by a cycle of
animals can be traced in Babylon, Egypt, primitive America, and
modern Europe, where to the present day the constellations along
the ecliptic are divided into twelve groups, called the Zodiac, or
Thierkreis, i. e., the animal cycle.

The duodenary cycle is an ancient method of counting, ex-
pressed by animal names, a custom which has only been abolished
in Japan since the Great Reform under the influence of Western
civilisation. Up to that time people spoke there of "the rat hour,"
"the ox hour," "the tiger hour," etc., and these terms had no other
significance than in Western countries, one o'clock, two o'clock, or
three o'clock.

The twelve animals are affiliated with the twelve branches, so-
iled, which practically possess the same significance, being also
duodenary cycle. The twelve branches may be summarily charac-
terised as the twelve months, beginning with the eleventh in which
the yang principle begins to prepare for its appearance in the new
year, and ending in the tenth month of the ensuing year. The twelve
branches are correlated not only to the twelve animals, but also to
the five elements as indicated in our diagram. The fifth element
"earth" is missing because it represents the center around which the
twelve branches are grouped.

526

THE MONIST.

W

d

55

w

Q

O
D

Q

W
ffi
H

«

I*

£ g

j o w

W H «

= -

fc gj S5

~ «l

1 I

5 S rt

S 0

2 a

43 *£

CHINESE OCCULTISM.

527

There is another system of counting, which however is decimal,
and is called "the ten stems" ; and it appears that it is simply an
older method of counting the months of the year. In their original
here also the explanation of the several symbols has reference to
the progress of the year.

It is not impossible that the decimal system was the original and
indigenous Chinese method of counting, while the duodecimal system

THE TEN STEMS.

NO.

NAME

TRANSCRIP-
TION

SIGNIFICANCE

ELEMENT TO WHICH
RELATED

1

*

chia

Yang moving in the East
sprouting.

fir tree

}wood

2

£

yi

Plant growing in a crooked
way; tendril; twig.

bamboo

3

1^1

ping

Growth in southern heat;
bloom.

torch-flame

}fire

4

T

ting

Vegetation in warm season;
summer.

lamp-light

5

It

wu

Exuberance; surcease of

mountains

} earth

6

e

ki

Wintry sleep; hibernation.

level ground

I

7

&

keng

Fullness of crops; the West;
autumn fruit.

weapon

> metal

8

*

sin

Ripened fruit and its flavor;
supposed to be metallic.

cauldron

1

:

10

»

jen
kwei

Yin at the height of its
function; pregnancy.

Water absorbed by earth;
Yang preparing for spring.

billow

unruffled
stream

V water

was imported at a very early date from Accad or Sumer, the country
of the founders of Babylonian civilisation.

The existence of these two systems suggests the occurrence of
a calendar reform such as was introduced in Rome under Numa
Pompilius, and we are confronted with the strange coincidence that
in China as well as in Rome the two additional months (January

528 THE MONIST.

and February) were inserted at the beginning as a result of which
we call even t6-day the last month of the year December, i. e., "the
tenth." We must leave the question as to the plausibility of a his-
torical connection to specialists familiar with the influence of Baby-
lonian thought on the rest of the world. It is not impossible that
a Babylonian (perhaps Sumerian) calendar reform traveled in both
directions, rapidly toward the more civilised East, and very slowly
toward the West, producing in these remote countries and at differ-
ent times this startling coincidence of a similar calendar reform.

We might parenthetically state that the original meaning of
the ten stems and twelve branches has practically been lost sight of,
and both systems have become simply series of figures, the former
from, one to ten, the latter from one to twelve; while their symbol-
ical relations, the former with the elements, the latter with the twelve
animals, are of importance merely to occultists.

The ten stems are also called "the ten mothers," and the twelve
branches, "the twelve children." That the former is the older ar-
rangement appears from another name which is "the ten hoary
characters.

By a combination of the ten stems with the twelve branches in
groups of two in which the former are repeated six times and the
latter five times, a series of sixty is produced which is commonly
called by sinologists the sexagenary cycle, and is used for naming
years as well as days. The invention of the sexagenary cycle and
its application to the calendar is attributed to Nao the Great, one
of the prime ministers of Hwang Ti, the Yellow Emperor,15 who
had solicited this work in the sixtieth year of his reign. Nao the
Great, having accomplished the task, set the beginning of the new
era in the succeeding year, 2637 B. C. Accordingly we live now in
the seventy-sixth cycle which began in 1863 and will end in 1922.

A convenient method of translating the properly Chinese names
of the sexagenary cycle would be to render the two characters by
their equivalent relations to the twelve animals and the five elements,

"According to traditional chronology, Hwang Ti reigned from 2697 to
2597 B. C.

CHINESE OCCULTISM.

529

THE SEXAGENARY CYCLE.

TJP

GE,

T

chia tzu
1864

2

yich'ou
1865

3

ping yin
1866

4

ting mao
1867

5

mou chen

1868
6

chi ssu

1869

7
kSngwu

1870

8

hsin wei
1871

9
jen shen

1872

10

kweiyu

1873

ll

• 1874
12

1875

13

ping tzu
1876

14

»,*

1877
15

1878

16

chi mao
1879

17

kSng chen
1880

18

hsin ssu
1881

19
jen wu

1882

20

kwei wei
1883

Z,

2.*

T

1884
22

yi yu

1885

23
ping shu

1886

24

ting hai
1887

25
mou tzu

26

chi ch'ou
1889

27

kgngyin
1890

28

hsin mao
1891

29

1892
30

kwei ssu

1893

31

chia wu
1894

32

yi wei

1895

33

ping shen
1896

34

ting yu
1897

35
mou shu

1898

36

chi hai
1899

37

kSng tzu
1900

38

hsin ch'ou
1901

39

jSn yin
1902

40

kwei mao
1903

41

T*

PC

TE.

1904

42

yi ssu
1905

43

ping wu
1906

44

ting wei
1907

45
mou shen

1908

46

chiyu
1909

47

ke"ng shu
1910

48

hsin hai
1911

49

jen tzu
1912

50

kwei ch'ou

1913

51

chia yin
1914

52

yi mao
1915

53

ping chen
1916

54

ting ssu
1917

56
chi wei

1919

57

kSng shin
1920

58

hsin wu
1921

59

jen shu
1922

60

kwei hai

1923

53° THE MONIST.

so as to speak of the "fir-rat" year, the "bamboo-ox" year, the
"torch-tiger" year, etc.

FENG-SHUL*

Chinese occultism has been reduced to a system in an occult
science (or better, pseudo-science) called feng-shui which, literally
translated, means "wind and water," and the two words combined
denote atmospheric influence, or climate. As a science feng-shui
means a study of conditions, spiritual as well as physical, and the
average Chinese is very anxious to locate the site of graves, tem-
ples, public and private edifices so as to insure the auspicious in-
fluence of their surroundings. Belief in the efficiency of feng-shui
is very strong, and consequently its scholars play an important part
in public and private life.

The science of feng-shui is fantastical, but its advocates claim
the authority of the ancient Yih King, which in chapter XIII, I to
12, reads as follows:

"By looking up in order to contemplate the heavenly bodies, and by
looking down to examine into the natural influences of the earth, man may
acquire a knowledge of the cause of darkness and light."

Feng-shui is also called ti-ltf and k'an-yu.% Ti-li may fitly be
translated by "geomancy." Li, frequently translated by "reason"
or "rational principle," means a system of the dominant maxims
which govern nature. Ti means "the earth" and so the two together
signify "the divining art as to terrestrial conditions." K'an-yu,
translated literally, means "canopy chariot," but k'an (canopy) re-
fers to the sky and yu (chariot) refers to the earth as the vehicle
in which all living beings are carried. The term "canopy chariot"
then means the art which is occupied with the conditions of man's
habitation.

The professional diviners who use the net tablet are called
sien-sheng,§ "the elder born," which is a title of respect and has been
translated by "professor." They are called either feng-shui sien-
sheng, "professors of divination," or ti-li sien-sheng, "geomancers,"
or k'an-yu sien-sheng, "masters of the canopied chariot."

CHINESE OCCULTISM. 53!

The application of the feng-shui is naturally very loose, and
two different professors may easily come to opposite results accord-
ing to their individual interpretation of the correct balance of the
mixture of the elements and the several spiritual influences that
may be discovered in the indications of the geomancer's compass.
Prof. J. J. M. De Groot16 explains the application of the lo-pan
as follows:

"The chief use of the geomantic compass is to find the line in which,
according to the almanac, a grave ought to be made, or a house or temple
built. Indeed, in this most useful of all books it is every year decided between
which two points of the compass the lucky line for that year lies, and which
point is absolutely inauspicious. This circumstance not only entails a post-
ponement of many burials, seeing it is not always possible to find a grave,
answering to all the geomantic requirements, in the lucky line of the year;
but it regularly compels the owners of houses and temples to postpone re-
pairs or the rebuilding of the same until a year in which the line wherein
their properties are situate is declared to be lucky. Many buildings for this
reason alone are allowed to fall to ruin for years, and it is no rare thing to
see whole streets simultaneously demolished and rebuilt in years auspicious
to the direction in which they were placed."

Considering the sacrifices which are expected of a good son
in the selection of the site and the general equipment of the parental
graves, we can easily understand that the burden of ancestral wor-
ship is very heavy. While we must admire the filial piety of the
Chinese, we regret to see the uselessness of their devotion and the
waste to which it leads. It is refreshing, however, to observe that
the general rule is not without exceptions and we find that there
are sensible men who raise their voices in protest.

Ts'ui Yuen of the second century, a mandarin of high position,
died at Loh-Yang, the imperial metropolis. According to the cus-
tomary ritual, his son should have transported his remains to his
place of birth for burial in the family cemetery, but Ts'ui Yuen left
these instructions with his son Shih, which we quote from De Groot
(loc. cit., pp. 837-8) :

16 In his voluminous work The Religious System of China, Vol. Ill, Bk. i.
"Disposal of the Dead." Part 3. "The Grave," p. 974.

532 THE MONIST.

"Human beings borrow from heaven and earth the breath upon which
they live, and at the end of their terrestrial career they restitute the etherial
parts of that breath to heaven, giving their bones back to earth ; consequently,
what part of the earth can be unsuitable for concealing their skeletons? You
must not take me back to my place of birth, nor may you accept any funeral
presents, neither offerings of mutton or pork."

The Chinese authority from which Professor De Groot quotes,
adds :17

"Respectfully receiving these his last orders, Shih kept the corpse in
Loh-Yang and there buried it."

The spirit of Ts'ui Yuen has not died out, as is attested by a
satirical poem which is current to-day, and which humorously points
out the inconsistency of those mantics or soothsayers who know
all the conditions of the four quarters and promise their patrons
to show them (for a due consideration) a spot so auspicious for
a grave that the spirit of their ancestor will bestow upon members
of the family the dignity of kings. If that were true, why have they
not buried their own parents there? The poem in the original
Chinese is as follows :

ti li hsien sheng kwan shuo huang
chih nan chih pei chih hsi tung
shan chung je yu wang hou ti
he pu hsin lai tsang nai weng.18

This translation imitates the original as closely as possible in
metre and meaning:

Trash these mantics manifest,
Point out south, north, east and west;
Know graves royalty bestowing
Yet their own sires there not rest.

17 Books of the Later Han Dynasty, Chap. 82 line 15.

18 In the early Chinese form, the final words of the first, second, and
fourth lines were all pronounced as if ending in ong. Consequently, although
the individual words have changed their form, the series is considered as
containing one rhyme and, according to Chinese rules of rhyming, is still so
used in verse.

CHINESE OCCULTISM.

533

LO-PAN.

Collectors of curios may have seen in Chinese stores the instru-
ment called lo-pan* (net-tablet), or lo-king-f (net-standard), or pan-
(disk-norm). This is the geomancer's compass which incorpo-

h & '

w

LO-PAN OR NET TABLET.
[The original is in the possession of Prof. Friedrich Hirth.]

rates the sum-total of feng-shui. The Chinese salesman who showed
the instrument at my request, a man who must have lived half his
life or more in the United States, expressed great respect for it
and tried to impress me with the fact that it contained the deepest
wisdom of the ages.

The lo-pan is a disk of lacquered wood, mostly of yellow color,

t

I a* 3*

534 THE MONIST.

carrying in its center under glass, a small mariner's compass. Some
of the characters written in the surrounding circles are red, and
some are black. Different copies differ in details, but all are prac-
tically the same in their general and most characteristic features.
The concentric circles of the net tablet are called ts'eng* i. e.,
"tiers," "stories," or "strata."

The mariner's compass in the center represents t'ai chih,^ "the
great origin." The first circle contains the eight trigrams in the
arrangement of Fuh-Hi, which denote the eight directions of the
compass and the virtues and properties attributed to them.

The second circles contains the numerals from one to nine in
the arrangement of the magic square, the five being omitted as it
belongs in the center. Accordingly the sum of each two opposite
figures always makes ten.

The third row represents twenty-four celestial constellations,
each expressed in two characters, so that three names are registered
in each octant.

The fourth circle represents in occult terms twenty- four di-
visions of the compass. Southeast, southwest, northeast, and north-
west are written in their kwa names, while the rest are designated
alternately by the ten stems and twelve branches ; two of the stems
are omitted, however, because referring to the element earth, they
are supposed to belong in the center. If we write the ten stems as
numerals from one to ten, the twelve branches in italic letters from
a to m, and the four kwa names in Roman capitals A to D, we have
the following arrangement, beginning in the southeast: A / 3 g
q.h'BijkSlCmgaiob'Dci d 2 e. This arrangement is an-
cient for it is quoted as an established part of the divining methc
by Sze-Ma Ch'ien in the twenty-fifth chapter of his Historical
Records, which is devoted to the art of divination.

The fifth circle is divided into seventy-two parts each contain-
ing two characters of the sexagenary cycle, written one above the
other, and arranged in groups of five divided by blank spaces. H
we again express the ten stems in figures and the twelve branch*

CHINESE OCCULTISM.

535

in italics, the scheme (starting with the first branch a standing in
the north) reads as follows:

13579

(I (I (I U (I

79135

2 4 6 8 10
b b b b b

8 10 2 4 6

35791
c c c c c

91357

4 6 8 10 2
d d d d d

10 2 4 6 8

57913
e e e e e

13579

6 8 10 2 4
f f f f f

246 8 10

g g g g g

h h h h h

z z z t t

k k k k k

/ / / / /

m m m m m

In the sixth row each octant is divided into three sections, each
having five compartments in the second and fourth of which appear
two characters of the sexagenary cycle. Accordingly they are ar-
ranged in the following order, the blanks being expressed by zeros :

03070

03070

04080

04080

03070

03070

0 a 0 a 0

0 a 0 a 0

0 £ 0 6 0

0 b 0 b 0

0 c 0 c 0

0 c 0 c 0

04080

04080

03070

03070

04080

04080

0 d 0 d 0

0 d 0 d 0

0 e 0 e 0

0 e 0 e 0

0/0/0

0 /O /O

03070

03070

04080

04080

03070

03070

Q g Qg 0

0 g 0 g 0

0 h 0 h 0

0 h 0 h 0

0 z 0 z 0

0 i 0 i 0

04080

04080

03070

03070

04080

04080

0*0*0

0*0*0

0/0/0

0/0/0

0 mQ m 0

0 mOm 0

The third and fourth stems refer to fire and the seventh and eighth
to metal.

The seventh row is devoted to the eight stars of the Dipper,
which in Chinese folklore is regarded with much awe, because this
most conspicuous constellation revolves around the polar star and
seems to resemble the hand of a watch on the great celestial dial
of the universe. We must remember that the seventh star is double,
its luminous satellite being visible even without the assistance of
a telescope. If we represent the names of the eight stars by numbers
from one to eight, their arrangement beginning with the southwest
is as follows :i85744623i578i3266475832.

Beyond the seventh circle we have a double line which divides
the seven inner rows from the nine outer ones. The first of these,
the eighth circle, is divided into twelve sections each having three
characters, the central ones written in red being the sun and moon

536

THE MONIST.

together with the five elements twice repeated. Beginning in the
south with the character sun, and turning toward the left, they
read as follows : sun, moon, water, metal, fire, wood, earth, earth,
wood, fire, metal, water.

The ninth row, consisting of twelve sections, represents the
twelve branches in regular succession, beginning in the north with
the first and turning toward the right. They coincide in position
with the twelve branches as they appear in the fourth row.

The tenth row is a repetition of the fifth, with the exception
that here the characters are distributed evenly over the whole circle.

The eleventh row consists of numerals only. The circle is di-
vided into twelve sections, each being subdivided into five compart-
ments which contain the following scheme repeated twelve times:

37

73

The twelfth row is inscribed with the names of the sub-divisions
of the four seasons, beginning with early spring above the unalloyed
yin and turning toward the right.

SPRING. AUTUMN.

OJL ^1P Beginning of Spring. _IL 4A Beginning of Autumn.

PS ;?JC Rain Water. tat 4li Limit of Heat.

Hf H£ Resurrection of hibernat- E3 jt£ White Dew.
ing Insects.

^P 7T Vernal Equinox.
m ^$J Pure Brightness.
Of P^ Rains over the Grain.

73 Autumnal Equinox.
8 Cold Dew.

ntf

IffiP Descent of Hoar Frost.

SUMMER.

Beginning of Summer.
Grain filling a little.
Grain in Ear.
Summer Solstice.
Slight Heat.
Great Heat.

WINTER.

Beginning of Winter.
Little Snow.
Heavy Snow.
Winter Solstice.
Little Cold.
Severe Cold.

CHINESE OCCULTISM. 537

The thirteenth row is divided into seventy-two equal parts,
which are left blank.

The fifteenth row is divided into three hundred and sixty equal
blanks representing the degrees of a circle which method of division
the Chinese as well as we of the Occident have inherited from the
Babylonians.

The sixteenth row contains the names of the twenty-eight con-
stellations together with the number of degrees which each covers.
These degrees are specifically marked in the fourteenth circle in
which the odd numbers only are expressed. The series starting in
the southeast and turning toward the right, is as follows:

1. The horn, 11°; in Virgo.

2. The neck, 11°; in Virgo.

3. The bottom, 18° ; in Libra.

4. The room, 5° ; in Scorpio.

5. The heart, 8° ; in Scorpio.

6. The tail, 15° ; in Scorpio.

7. The sieve, 9° ; in Sagittarius.

8. The measure, 24° ; in Sagittarius.

9. The ox, 8° ; in Aries and Sagittarius.

10. The damsel, 11°; in Aquarius.

11. The void, 10°; in Aquarius and Equuleus.

12. Danger, 20° ; in Aquarius and Pegasus.

13. The house, 16° ; in Pegasus.

14. The wall, 13° ; in Pegasus and Andromeda.

15. Astride, 11°; in Andromeda and Pisces.

16. The hump, 13°; in Aries. --, «••"'•

17. The stomach, 12° ; in Musca .Borealis.

18. The Pleiades, 9°. (In Chinese piao.y

19. The end, 15° ; in Hyades and Taurus.

20. The bill or beak, i° ; in Orion.

21. Crossing, or mixture, 11° ; in Orion.

22. The well or pond, 31° ; in Gemini.

23. The ghost, 5° ; in Cancer.

24. The willow, 17° ; in Hydra.

"The Chinese term mao does not possess any other significance except
the name of this constellation. This character is unfortunately misprinted in
Mayers, Chinese Reader's Manual. It is correct in the enumeration of Pro-
fessor De Groot, loc. cit., p. 972.

538

THE MONIST.

25. The star, 8" ; in Hydra.

26. The drawn bow, 18° ; in Hydra.

27. The wing, 17° ; in Crater and Hydra.

28. The back of a carriage seat, 13° ; in Corvus.

CHINESE POCKET COMPASS.

The two plates are hinged together and fold upon one another in
the same way as the European compasses shown in the following
pages.

CHINESE OCCULTISM.

539

THE MARINER'S COMPASS A CHINESE INVENTION.

The lo-pan or net tablet unquestionably serves superstitious pur-
poses, but we must bear in mind that much genuine science is in-
corporated in many of its details, and the latter no doubt has given
countenance to the former. This again is according to the general
law of the evolution of mankind and finds its parallel in the history
of European civilisation. We must bear in mind that the great
occultists of the Middle Ages, Paracelsus, Albertus Magnus, and

EUROPEAN COMPASS.
(Presumably Italian.)

men like them down to Agrippa of Nettesheim, were the most
powerful intellects of their day; and though they were deeply en-
tangled in mysticism, much of their life's work was devoted to the
furtherance of genuine scientific enquiry.

In the Chinese Middle Ages the leading thinkers were of the
same stamp, and so it is natural that much of genuine astronomy
and the results of accurate observation of the stars are incorporated
in the lo-pan. The most obvious part of it which must have ap-

540

THE MONIST.

EUROPEAN COMPASS.
(Presumably Nuremberg.)

CHINESE OCCULTISM. 541

peared extremely mystifying in former centuries was, as the Chi-
nese call it, the south-pointing needle — the mariner's compass — situ-
ated in the center of the lo-pan.

The south-pointing needle is an ancient Chinese invention which
for some time seems to have been forgotten. Professor Friedrich
Hirth of Columbia University has privately communicated to me
facts which prove that it was employed in ancient times by travelers
through the desert, that the invention was lost and had to be re-
discovered. We would add, too, that the Chinese invention became
known in Europe after the time of Marco Polo where it was soon
used as a mariner's compass. The incident is well known and
can easily be established on the testimony of literary sources, but
while sauntering through the National Museum at Washington, the
writer discovered a palpable evidence in the show cases there ex-
hibited, which displayed the Chinese pocket instruments containing
south-pointing needles presumably a few centuries old, side by side
with European compasses. They are of the same oblong shape and
consist of two tablets hinged in the same manner. The European
instruments have sun-dials in addition and are decidedly more ser-
viceable for practical use but we can not doubt that for the original
idea our ancestors are indebted to our -Mongol fellow-men.*

THE PERSONIFICATION OF STARS.

To the Chinese (as also in some respects to the Babylonians) the
stars are actual presences who sway the destinies of mankind, and we
reproduce here a series of illustrations from a Buddhist picture-book
printed in Japan. They are based upon ancient traditions ultimately
derived from Sumer and Accad, but we have at present no means to
determine the question of their history, especially as to their fate in
China. One thing, however, may be regarded as certain, viz., that
their traditional forms are prior to the calendar reform of the Jesuits.
Hence we must assume that they have been imported by the way on

* We wish to express here our indebtedness to the National Museum and
its officers, and especially to Prof. Otis T. Mason and Mr. George C. Maynard.
for the reproduction of characteristic specimens of this interesting collection.

542

THE MONIST.

land either by the Buddhists from India, or through some earlier
civilising influences perhaps from ancient Babylon, or may be in
later times from Greece by way of Bactria and Tibet. An historical

connection of some kind or other with Western astronomy which
also derives its origin from ancient Babylon, can scarcely be doubted ;
for the general similarities are too pronounced, and the more par-

CHINESE OCCULTISM.

543

ticular ones serve as obvious evidences which cannot be rejected,
while the differences afford suggestions in regard to their develop-
ment and fate.

According to the Chinese and Japanese custom, the series be-
gins in the right upper corners and the order proceeds downwards
and to the left.

The first figure represents the sun ; the second, the moon. In

544

THE MONIST.

the next row we see the polar star seated (like Buddha) on a lotus
and holding in his hands a wheel to indicate that he is the hub of
the heavens. As Buddha in the spiritual world, so the polar star

tt

JL

among the constellations is alone at rest while all other things in the
universe whirl round in unceasing rotation. In the same column is
the star of twilight-brightness, which may be either the morning or
evening star.

CHINESE OCCULTISM.

545

The third row of the same page begins the series of stars that
constitute Ursa Major, popularly called "the dipper" in America and
known in China as "the bushel."

ft

F
I*

The satellite of the seventh star in Ursa Major is pictured
as a smaller companion in the right hand corner in the field of his
bigger brother. Since he stands at the very point of the constella-

546

THE MONISTi

tion, his significance is in inverse proportion to his size, in a similar
way as Tom Thumb always takes the initiative in all deeds and
proves to be the saviour of his seven brothers.

#w

The seven planets are here increased after the precedence of
Hindu astrology by two three-headed figures called Rahu and Ketu,
the former being conceived as the head, and the latter as the tail of

CHINESE OCCULTISM.

547

the monster who is supposed to be responsible for solar and lunar
eclipses.

Next in order on our tables beginning with the second column

of their fourth page, are the twenty-eight constellations mentioned
above which play an important part in Chinese occultism. The ap-
proximate outline of the constellation is indicated in each case above

548

THE MONIST.

the picture, and we see, for instance, why the fifteenth constellation
is called "astride," and the twenty-sixth, a "drawn bow."

The stars corresponding to our signs of the zodiac are named

9'*

differently in Chinese. The characters on the lo-pan are presumably
the older and the originally Chinese way of naming the constella-
tions of the ecliptic, while our Buddhist picture-book incorporates
a later view, and we are inclined to regard it as imported by Bud-

CHINESE OCCULTISM.

549

dhist missionaries from India. Nine names among the twelve cor-
respond very closely to ours, but the order in which they occur is
different.

i m

In our researches we have never entered deeply into compara-
tive astronomy, but judging from suggestions of scholars who have
made a specialty of this interesting branch of human lore, we can
say positively that the Babylonian origin of the division and names

550

THE MONIST.

of the zodiac has been firmly established. Prof. Franz Boll has col-
lected all pertinent material of Greek texts and also illustrations of
several ancient representations of the starry heavens in his book,

129

Sphaera, neue griechische Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte
der Sternbilder (Leipsic, Teubner, 1903). He also refers to the
method prevalent in Eastern Asia, of counting hours, months, and

CHINESE OCCULTISM.

551

years by the duodenary system of animals and points out its simi-
larities to the Babylonian system (pp. 326 ff.). The facts presented
here in our article can only corroborate Professor Boll's theory.

ttt&tf

ft.

In addition to Professor Boll's work, the writer has had the
advantage of consulting some manuscript notes of an American
sinologue, Mr. Richard H. Geoghegan of Seattle, Washington, who
compares the calendar system of China to that of the Maya in

552 THE MONIST.

Central America, and arrives at the conclusion that the latter must
have derived the inspiration of its origin from the former.

In consideration of the fact that the calendar systems of prehis-
toric peoples in Asia and America exhibit similarities which are still
traceable in our nomenclature of the zodiac, we come to the con-
clusion that the interrelations of primitive mankind must have been
much closer than is commonly assumed.*

PREHISTORIC CONNECTIONS.

The evidences that indicate a Western origin of Chinese civili-
sation are very strong, and it seems that the first Chinese settlers
must have come in prehistoric times from a country that was closely
connected with the founders of Babylonian culture. There is an
unmistakable resemblance between cuneiform writing and Chinese
script, so as to make it quite probable that they have been derived
from a common source. We have, further, the sexagenary cycle
corresponding to the use of the number sixty in Babylonia. We our-
selves have retained some of the names for the signs of the zodiac
that were used in Babylon, and the Chinese have done the same.
Moreover, the Chinese divide the circle into three hundred and sixty
degrees as did the Babylonians, a system which has been adhered to
in the West down to modern times.

The Prometheus legend seems to come from the same source
(presumably Accad) as the story of the Chinese "Fire Man," Sui-
Jen. The Babylonian story of Tiamat as to the formation of the
world is repeated in the legend of P'an-Ku, the personification of
the ancient abyss.

Finally the yih system of the yang and the yin is paralleled
in at least one Semitic tribe by the similar divining method of the
Urim and Thummim. Though in the latter case the loss of details
prevents us from having any evidence of a historical connection,
the similarity of the purpose, as well as the duality of the elements
of the oracle cannot be denied.

* As soon as we see our way in overcoming the difficulties of repro-
ducing the Chinese characters and the Mayan symbols, we will proceed to
publish Mr. Geoghegan's article in the the columns of The Monist.

CHINESE OCCULTISM. 553

If none of these indications is conclusive when considered sepa-
rately, we can not disregard them when all are taken together.

Further bearing in mind that there is an ancient tradition in
China of a settlement having been made by a tribe coming from the
Far West, we may very well assume the ancestors of the Chinese
to be a detachment of the founders of the Babylonian civilisation,
either Sumerians or Accadians, and that they left their home in
prehistoric times presumably even before the first Semitic invasion
or soon afterwards. They were perhaps that portion of the people
who would not submit to the new condition of things and preferred
exile to absorption by a victorious enemy.

CONCLUSION.

Chinese occultism has its great faults, yet it is based upon a
world conception which is not only rational but even in close agree-
ment with some leading principles of Western science; and there
is scarcely a superstition in Cathay which has not at one time or
another prevailed in European countries, if not in the same, at least
in an analogous form. We, too, had the measles in our childhood ;
so we have no reason to ridicule the Chinese because they (or at
least large classes of the population) have them still.

From the standpoint of comparative ethnology and especially
ethnic psychology, a knowledge of the Chinese mode of thinking
is of great importance ; for the Chinese are so different from all
other existing nations in their world conception, and in their ways
of arguing, as well as living, that they seem to have developed a
type of humanity of their own. Yet the differences are only in ex-
ternals and their main logical as well as moral notions are practic-
ally the same as those which prevail among the nations of Europe.
Those traits, however, which are different are deeply rooted in the
aboriginal character of the Chinese nation and pervade their entire
history. These strange people have developed on different lines,
and though they started with great promise, having made rapid
strides at the very beginning of their civilisation, they exhibited a
most devout reverence toward the past which resulted in an un-

554 THE MONIST.

paralleled conservatism in their national institutions that worked
as a brake upon progress, and rendered their further evolution
almost stagnant. Because of this they have been easily overtaken by
the younger nations of the West who were still barbarians, nay.
savages, when China had attained a high grade of civilisation. We
should not forget that we owe to China all the inventions which in
their entirety produced the latest phase of our civilisation, viz., the
invention of printing, the manufacture of paper, the use of the
mariner's compass, and last but not least, the invention of gun-
powder. Reports of these inventions, not to mention others of less
significance, such as the manufacture of porcelain, silk culture, etc.,
had reached Europe through travelers who at first were scarcely
believed, but the result was a rediscovery of these ancient Chinese
inventions and their more systematic application in practical life.
While the Chinese, almost since the days of Confucius, have made
little advance in the arts and sciences, Europe grew rapidly in
knowledge, wealth, and power, having now reached a stage which
might be called "the age of science."

It is difficult for us to-day to understand how the Chinese can
be so impervious to progress, how they can be so proud of their
own civilisation, the imperfections of which appear obvious to us.
We find an answer to these problems when we become acquainted
with the Chinese mode of speaking, writing, and thinking. If we
want to comprehend their errors we must know that these are but
the reverse aspect of their proficiencies, and their faults are fre-
quently misapplied virtues. We shall be better able to deal with
the Chinese when we study their character as a whole by contem-
plating the dark aspects of the picture as the shades that are pro-
duced by the light that falls upon things. In this sense and for the
purpose of furnishing the necessary material for a psychological
appreciation of the Chinese nationality, we have sketched here and
in some previous articles, in bare outlines, the main characteristic
features of the Chinese world-conception. We hope that we have
helped thereby to contribute a little toward the realisation of the
great ideal of peace on earth and good will among men.

EDITOR.

MAGIC SQUARES.

[CONCLUSION.]
EVEN MAGIC SQUARES.

HE writer believes that the method of constructing even magic
squares by a predetermined geometrical arrangement of num-
bers is new and original. It will be noted that the foregoing dia-

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grams illustrate in a graphic manner the interesting results attained
by the harmonious association of figures, and they also clearly dem-
onstrate the almost infinite variety of possible combinations.

556

THE MONIST.

THE CONSTRUCTION OF EVEN MAGIC SQUARES BY DE LA
HIRE'S METHOD.

A perfect magic square of 4 X 4 may be constructed as fol-
lows:

1. Fill the corner diagonal columns of a 4 X 4 square with the
numbers i to 4 in arithmetical sequence, starting from the
upper and lower left hand corners (Fig. 67).

2. Fill the remaining empty cells with the missing numbers of
the series i to 4 so that the sum of every perpendicular and
horizontal column equals 10 (Fig. 68).

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2

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Fig. 67.

Fig. 68.

Fig. 69.

3. Construct another 4X4 square, having all numbers in the

same positions relatively to each other as in the last square,
but reversing the direction of all horizontal and perpendicular
columns (Fig. 69).

4. Form the key square Fig. 70 from Fig. 69 by substituting
key numbers for prime numbers, and then add the numbers
in this key square to similarly located numbers in the primary
square Fig. 68. The result will be the perfect square of
4X4 shown in Fig. 72.

By making the key square Fig. 71 from the primary square
Fig. 68 and adding the numbers therein to similarly located numbers
in the primary square Fig. 69, the same magic square of 4 X 4 will
be produced, but with all horizontal and perpendicular columns re
versed in direction as shown in Fig. 73.

The magic square of 6 X 6 shown in Figure 46 and also a
large number of variations of same may be readily constructed by

MAGIC SQUARES.

557

the De la Hire method, and the easiest way to explain the process
will be to analyze the above mentioned square into the necessary
primary and key squares, using the prime numbers i to 6 with their
respective key numbers as follows :

Prime numbers i, 2, 3. 4, 5, 6.
Key numbers o, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30.

The. cells of two 6X6 squares may be respectively filled with
prime and key numbers by analyzing the contents of each cell in
Fig. 46. Commencing at the left hand cell in the upper row, we
note that this cell contains i. In order to produce this number by
the addition of a prime number to a key number it is evident that

PRIME

KEY

NUMBERS

NUMRERS

I

0

2

3

4
8

4

12

Fig. 72.

Fig. 73-

o and i must be selected and written into their respective cells.
The second number in the top row of Fig. 46 being 35, the key
number 30 must be written in the second cell of the key square and
the prime number 5 in the second cell of the prime square, and
so on throughout all the cells, the finished squares being shown in
Figs. 74 and 75.

Another prime square may now be derived from the key square
Fig. 74 by writing into the various cells of the former the prime
numbers that correspond to the key numbers of the latter. This
second primary square is shown in Fig. 76. It will be seen that the
numbers in Fig. 76 occupy the same relative positions to each other

558

THE MONIST.

as the numbers of the first primary square (Fig. 75), but the direc-
tion of all columns is changed from horizontal to perpendicular,
and vice versa.

To distinguish and identify the two primary squares which are
used in these operations, the first one (in this case Fig. 75) will in
future be termed the A primary square, and the second one (in this
case Fig. 76) the B primary square.

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Fig. 74-

It is evident that the magic square of 6 X 6 shown in Fig. 46
may now be reconstructed by adding the cell numbers in Fig. 74

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to the similarly placed cell numbers in Fig. 75. Having thus in-
versely traced the development of the magic square from its A and B
primary and key squares, it will be useful to note some of the general
characteristics of even primary squares, and also to study the rules
which govern their construction, as these rules will be found in-
structive in assisting the student to work out an almost endless
variety of even magic squares of all dimensions.

MAGIC SQUARES. 559

1. Referring to the 6 X 6 A primary square shown in Fig. 75, it

will be noted that the two corner diagonal columns contain
the numbers i to 6 in arithmetical order, starting respectively
from the upper and lower left hand corner cells, and that the
diagonal columns of the B primary square in Fig. 76 also
contain the same numbers in arithmetical order but starting
from the two upper corner cells. The numbers in the two
corner diagonal columns are subject to many arrangements
which differ from the above but it will be unnecessary to
consider them in the present article.

2. The numbers in the A primary square Fig. 75 have the same

relative arrangement as those in the B primary square Fig.
76, but the horizontal columns in one square form the per-
pendicular columns in the other and vice versa. This is a
general but not a universal relationship between A and B
primary squares.

3. The sum of the series I to 6 is 21 and the sum of every

column in both A and B 6 X 6 primary squares must also
be 21.

4. The sum of every column in a 6 X 6 key square must be 90,
and under these conditions it follows that the sum of every
column of a 6X6 magic square which is formed by the
combination of a primary square with a key square must be
in (21 4-90= in).

5. With the necessary changes in numbers the above rules hold

good for all sizes of A and B primary squares and key
squares.

We may now proceed to show how a variety of 6 X 6 magic
squares can be produced by different combinations of numbers in
primary and key squares. The six horizontal columns in Fig. 75
show some of the combinations of numbers from I to 6 that can be
used in 6 X 6 A primary squares, and the positions of these columns
or rows of figures relatively to each other may be changed so as
to produce a vast variety of squares which will naturally lead to
the development of a corresponding number of 6 X 6 magic squares.

56o

THE MONIST.

In order to illustrate this in a systematic manner the different
rows of figures in Fig. 75 may be rearranged and identified by letters
as given in Fig. 77.

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Fig. 77-

Fig. 78 shows the sequence of numbers in the diagonal columns
of these 6 X 6 A primary squares, and as this arrangement cannot

ist line
2nd "
3rd ««
4th "
5th "
6th "

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a, b, or c.
a, e, or f.
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c, d, or *.
a, *, or /.
a, b, or c.

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Fig. 78.

be changed in this series, the various horizontal columns or rows in
Fig. 77 must be selected accordingly. The small letters at the right

No. i. No. 2. No. 3. No. 4. No. 5. No. 6.

a

a

b

b

c

c

f

e

/

e

a

/

c

d

c

d

d

e

d

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d

c

e

d

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e

f

f

a

b

b

a

a

b

b

Fig. 79-

of Fig. 78 indicate the different horizontal columns that may be used
for the respective lines in the square ; thus either a, b, or c column

MAGIC SQUARES.

in Fig. 77 may be used for the first and sixth lines, a, e, or / for the
second and fifth, and c, d, or e for the third and fourth lines, but
neither b, c, or d can be used in the second or fifth lines, and so forth.
Six different combinations of columns are given in Fig, 79.
from which twelve different 6X6 magic squares may be con-
structed. Taking column No. i as an example, Fig. 80 shows an

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Fig. 80.

Fig. 81.

A primary square made from the combination a, f, c, d^ e, b, and
Fig. 8 1 is the B primary square formed by reversing the direction
of the horizontal and perpendicular columns of Fig. 80. The key
square Fig. 82 is then made from Fig. 81 and the 6X6 magic

6

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Fig. 82.

Fig. 83.

square in Fig. 84 is the result of adding the cell numbers of Fig. 82
to the corresponding cell numbers in Fig. 80.

The above operation may be varied by reversing the horizontal
columns of the key square Fig. 82 right and left as shown in Fig.
83 and then forming the magic square given in Fig. 85. In this way
two different magic squares may be derived from each combination.

562

THE MONIST

It will be noted that all the 6X6 magic squares that are con-
structed by these rules are similar in their general characteristics
to the 6X6 squares which are built up by the diagrammatic system.

Perfect 8X8 magic squares may be constructed in great vari-
ety by the method now under consideration, and the different com-

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Fig. 85.

binations of numbers from I to 8 given in Fig. 86 will be found use-
ful by laying out a large number of A primary squares.

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Fig. 87 shows the fixed numbers in the diagonal columns of
these 8 X 8 A primary squares, and also designates by letters the
specific rows of figures which may be used for the different hori-
zontal columns. Thus the row marked a in Fig. 86 may be used
for the first, fourth, fifth, and eighth horizontal columns but cannot

MAGIC SQUARES.

563

be employed for the second, third, sixth or seventh columns, and so
forth.

Fig. 88 suggests half a dozen combinations which will form
as many primary squares, and it is evident that the number of
possible variations is very large. It will suffice to develop the first
and third of the series in Fig. 88 as examples.

a, b, c, d, or e.

b, c, aa, dd, oree.
d, e, aa, or cc.

a, b, d, cc, or ee.

a, b, d, cc, or ee.
d, e, aa, or cc.

b, c, aa, dd, or ee.
_ a, b, c, d, or e.

Fig. 87.

Fig. 89 is the A primary square developed from column No. i
in Fig. 88, and Fig. 90 is the B primary square made by reversing

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Fig. 88.

the direction of all horizontal and perpendicular columns of Fig. 89.
Substituting key numbers for the prime numbers in Fig. 90, and
adding these key numbers to the prime numbers in Fig. 89 gives
the perfect magic square of 8 X 8 shown in Fig. 91. The latter will
be found identical with the square which may be written out directly
from diagrams in Fig: 52.

564

THE MONIST.

Fig. 92 shows an A primary square produced from column
No. 3 in Fig. 88. The B primary square Fig. 93 being made in the
regular way by reversing the direction of the columns in Fig. 92.

Prime numbers I, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Key numbers o, 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 56.

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Fig. 90.

The perfect magic square of 8 X 8 in Fig. 94 is developed from
these two primary squares as in the last example, and it will be

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Fig. 91.

found similar to the square which may be formed directly from
diagram No. 2 in Fig. 54.

Fig. 95 shows another 8X8 magic square which is constructed
by combining the A primary square in Fig. 89 with the B primary
square in Fig. 93 after changing the latter to a key square in the

MAGIC SQUARES.

565

manner before described. This magic square may also be directly
constructed from diagram No. 4 in Fig. 54.

It is evident that an almost unlimited number of different
8X8 magic squares may be made by the foregoing methods, and

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Fig. 93-

their application to the formation of other and larger squares is so
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fS

'7

Fig. 94.

Fig. 95-

COMPOUND MAGIC SQUARES.

The writer believes that these highly ingenious combinations
were first devised by Prof. Hermann Schubert.

They may be described as a series of small magic squares ar-
ranged quadratically in magic square order.

566

THE MONIST.

The 9X9 square shown in Fig. 96 is the smallest of this class
that can be constructed and it consists of nine 3X3 sub-squares
arranged in the same order as the numerals i to 9 inclusive in the
3X3 square shown in Fig. i. The first sub-square occupies the

u

2/

22

3S

30

J/

6s

26

iS

32

63

70

2V

SO

A3

23

39

to

7

7*

77

f/

JJ

7*

7*

7*

S3

tf

'7

/3

SO

fS

63

/v-

f/

si

Totals = 369.

Fig. 96.

middle section of the first horizontal row of sub-squares, and it
contains the numbers i to 9 inclusive arranged in regular magic

77

Sf

6s

7*

'7

*7

21

3t

Vt

79

ft

•3$

S3

/O

20

30

40

fa

to

7°

J/

22

32

42

fZ

73

23

33

#3

3-3

7*

6s

46,

7*

/s

2S~

Totals = 369.

Fig. 97-

square order being a duplicate of Fig. i. The second sub-square
is located in the right hand lower corner of the third horizontal row
of sub-squares and it contains the numbers 10 to 18 inclusive ar-
ranged in magic square order, and so on to the last sub-square

MAGIC SQUARES.

567

which occupies the middle section of the third horizontal row of
sub-squares, and which contains the numbers 73 to 8 1 inclusive.

This peculiar arrangement of the numbers I to 81 inclusive
forms a magic square in which the characteristics of the ordinary
9X9 square are multiplied to a remarkable extent, for whereas in
the latter square (Fig. 97) there are only twenty columns which
sum up to 369, in the compound square of 9 X 9 there are an
immense number of combination columns which yield this amount.
This is evident from the fact that there are eight columns in the
first sub-square which yield the number 15 ; also eight columns in

//A

/Iff

/2S-

33

4S-

49

to

'*?

S/S

f/

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43

ta.

/if

36

6s

7*

7?

'*?

/V

/f

79

7°

7*

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7*

7'

6*

7*

/3Z

9'

Sf

'7

tt

ft

9'

fZ

"7

30

fv

f?

/*/

//I

32,

Totals
= 870.

Fig. 98.

the middle sub-square which yield the number 123 — and eight col-
umns in the last sub-square which sum up to the number 231 — and
15 + 123 + 231 = 369.

The next compound square is that of 12 X 12 which may be
built with sixteen sub-squares of 3 X 3 or with nine sub-squares
of 4 X 4 the latter arrangement being shown in Fig. 98.

The next larger square of this class is that of 16 X 16 which
can only be built with sixteen sub-squares of 4 X 4- Next comes
the 18 X 1 8 compound square which may be constructed with

568

THE MONIST.

thirty-six sub-squares of 3 X 3 or with nine sub-squares of 6 X 6,
and so on indefinitely with larger and larger compound squares.

CONCENTRIC MAGIC SQUARES.

Beginning with a small central magic square it is possible to
arrange one or more panels of numbers concentrically around it so
that after the addition of each panel, the enlarged square will still
retain magic qualifications.

Either a3X3ora4X4 magic square may be used as a

2$

/

Z

20

/9

22

/6

9

'4

4

S

//

/J

/$

2/

S

/2

'7

/o

/<?

7

2f

2-4

6

4

Fig. 99-

2.3

/

2,

20

S9

22

/2

//

/6

V

S

'7

/J

3

2/

S

/o

/sr

/&

/<f

7

2f

24.

6

J

Fig. 102.

Totals of 3 X 3 squares = 39.
Totals of 5 X 5 squares = 65.

nucleus, and the square will obviously remain either odd or even,
according to its beginning, irrespective of the number of panels
which may be ' successively added to it. The center square will
naturally be perfect, but after one or more panels have been added
the enlarged square will no longer retain perfect characteristics,
because the peculiar features of its construction will not permit the
sum of every pair of geometrically opposite numbers to equal the

MAGIC SQUARES.

569

sum of the first and last numbers of the series used. The sum of
every horizontal and perpendicular column and of the two corner
diagonal columns will, however, be the same amount.

The smallest concentric square that can be constructed is that
of 5 X 5, an example of which is illustrated in Fig. 99.

The center square of 3 X 3 begins with 9 and continues, with
increments of i, up to 17, the center number being 13 in accordance
with the general rule for a 5 X 5 square made with the series of

/9

2

20

/

2&

4

/6

9

/#

22

/f

//

/3

/s

f

2/

/2

f?

/o

S

J

24

6

2S

7

Fig. 103.

Totals of 3 X 3 square = 39.
Totals of 5 X 5 square = 65.

numbers i to 25. The development of the two corner diagonal
columns is given in diagram Fig. 100, the numbers for these col-
umns being indicated by small circles. The proper sequence of the
other twelve numbers in the panels is shown in Fig. 101. The
relative positions of the nine numbers in the central 3X3 square
cannot be changed, but the entire square may be inverted or turned
one quarter, one half, or three quarters around, so as to vary the
position of the numbers in it relatively to the surrounding panel

570

THE MONIST.

numbers. Fig. 102 shows a 5 X 5 concentric square in which the
panel numbers occupy the same cells as in Fig. 99, but the central
3X3 square is turned around one quarter of a revolution to the
right.

Several variations may also be made in the location of the panel
numbers, an example being given in Figs. 103, 104, and 105. Many

40

L

/<?

f°

0

*o

/r

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•

!o

jj-

/J?

o

a

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22

\ /

If

is

/ x 7 ./§»*?

Fig. 108.

J X J Spttarrt.

Fig. 109.

Fig 107.

«6

/

2

J

42

*/

*<9

4S

J^

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J/

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64

J*

£/

2/

26

/rf

6

7

2

^J

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27

JJ

43

//

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^*

29

22

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JS

/2

/5

-V

36

//

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/O

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f

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Fig. 106.

Fig. no.

Totals of 3 X 3 square = 75
Totals of 5 X 5 square =125
Totals of 7 X 7 square =175

other changes in the relative positions of the panel numbers are
selfevident

One of many variations of the 7X7 concentric magic square

MAGIC SQUARES.

is shown in Fig. no. The 3X3 central square in this example is
started with 21 and finished with 29 in order to comply with the
general rule that 25 must occupy the center cell in a 7 X 7 square

Diagonal Cofumxs. £ X& feint I, 7% f Janel

SX S T&neL 3 X 3 Syuai-

/

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7

6f>-

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Fig. 115.

7

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f?

Fig. 114-

i«

/ \

7*

it

9 O

J-6

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ex

fe

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Fig. 113.

Jt

* y

'/</

<f"*>\ /Pi'i

/*

6t

</t

inr

'7

77

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'6

At

7^

6z

'7

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7*

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w

Z9

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**

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TOTALS :

a

Z3

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39

4'

«J

^

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3X3 square 123,

'4

*7

36

40

4*

3S

^^

ff

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5X5 square 205,

/f

zs

3S

S3

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34

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9X9 square ^69.

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26

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24

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-^ ' ^ ^ Tl \J ^

/A

S/

SO

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7*

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Fig. 116.

that includes the series of numbers I to 49. The numbers for the
two corner diagonal columns are indicated in their proper order
by small circles in Fig. 106, and the arrangement of the panel num-
bers is given in Figs. 107, 108, and 109. As a final example of an

572

THE MONIST.

odd concentric square Fig. 1 16 shows one of 9 X 9, its development
being given in Figs, in, 112, 113, 114, and 115.

All these diagrams are simple and obvious expansions of those
shown in Figs. 100 and 101 in connection with the 5X5 concentric
square, and they and their numerous variations may be expanded

/<*

O

QL At

to

Fig. 117.

•TVttntlei'J

6*67*

4c X #

Fig. 118.

JJ

2£

/a

AS

//

2J

30

2?

Fig. 120.

Totals of 4 X 4 square = 74.
Totals of 6 X 6 square = in.

indefinitely and used for the construction of larger odd magic
squares of this class.

The smallest even concentric magic square is that of 6 X 6, of
which Fig. 120 is an example. The development of this square

MAGIC SQUARES.

573

may be traced in the diagrams given in Figs. 117, 118, and 119.
The center square of 4 X 4 is perfect, but after the panel is added
the enlarged square becomes imperfect as already noted. Figs. 121,
122, 123, and 124 illustrate another example of this square with
diagrams of development.

' x>

Columns,

<X J/

Fig. 121.

i/fuinitrj in
6*6 Fantl*

X

JJ
Ji
J/

AO

Fig. 122.

•Sfiuitrtert i
4X4 J?t

/S

Fig. 123.

/

J^

JO

.f

J«

6

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//

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2f

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*7

<f

5J

/z

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26

2J

J/

J2

7

JZ

J

J*

Fig. 124.

Totals of 4 X 4 square =. 74.
Totals of 6 X 6 square = HI.

A concentric square of 8 X 8 with diagrams are given in Figs.
[25, 126, 127, 128, and 129, and one of 10 X 10 in Figs. 130, 131,
[32, 133, 134, and 135. It will be seen that all these larger squares
lave been developed in a very easy manner from successive expan-

574

THE MONIST.

sions of the diagrams used for the 6 X 6 square in Figs. 117, 118,
and 119.

The rules governing the formation of concentric magic squares

ntil Column*'

/ 0

*

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*
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•
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3 ~~oJ.>*

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Fig. 125.

Fig. 126.

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30

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33

43

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3f

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23

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24

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27

26

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J

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60

6

7

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Fig. 129.

Totals of 4 X 4 square =130.
Totals of 6 X 6 square = 195.
Totals of 8 X 8 square = 260.

have been hitherto considered somewhat difficult, but by the aid of
diagrams as devised by the writer, their construction in great variety

MAGIC SQUARES.

and of any size has been reduced to an operation of extreme sim-
plicity, involving only the necessary patience to construct the dia-
grams and copy the numbers.

folu

10 p

n/oo

<?2

/OX /O&ntl.

Fig. 130.

/o

QlOO

42.

Fig. 131.

TOTALS :

4X4 square = 202

6X6 square = 303

8X8 square = 404

10 X 10 square = 505

SX.S

/2

*7

/ff

99

7*

29

7'

J/.

40

60

66

so

67

SO

SS

96

94

22

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Fig. 135-

576

THE MONIST.

GENERAL NOTES ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF MAGIC SQUARES.

There are two variables which govern the summations of all
magic squares, viz. :

1. The Initial, or starting number.

2. The Increment, or increasing number.

When these two numbers are known, the summations can be
easily determined, or when either of these variables and the sum-
mation are known, the other variable can be readily derived.

The most interesting problem in this connection is the construc-
tion of squares with predetermined summations, and this subject
will therefore be first considered, assuming that the reader is familiar
with the usual methods of building odd and even squares.

If a square of 3 X 3 is constructed in the usual manner, that is,
beginning with unity and proceeding with regular increments of
i, the total of each column will be 15.

Totals = 15.

Fig. 136.

If 2 is used as the initial number instead of I and the square
is again constructed with regular increments of I, the total of each
column will be 18 instead of 15.

9

2

7

&

6

s

s

/o

3

Totals = 18.

Fig. 137-

If 2 is still used as the initial number and the square is once
more constructed with regular increments of 2 instead of I, the
total of each column will be 30 instead of 18.

MAGIC SQUARES. 577

/o

Totals = 30.

Fig. 138.

It therefore follows that there must be initial numbers, the use
of which with given increments will entail summations of any pre-
determined amount, and there must also be increments, the use of
which with given initial numbers, will likewise produce predeter-
mined summations.

These initial numbers and increments may readily be determined
by a simple form of equation which will establish a connection be-
tween them and the summation numbers.

Let:

a = initial or starting number.

b = increment.

c — number of cells in one side of square.

d — summation number when square is started with unity

and built up with increments of I.
e = desired summation number.

Then:

(aXO-f [(d — c) Xb]=e.

It will be found convenient to substitute a constant for (d — c)
in the foregoing equation and for this purpose a table of these con-
stants is given below for all squares from 3X3 to 12 X 12.

Squares : (d — c) = Const. = K

12
30
60

105
168
252
360

495
660

858

578 THE MONIST.

When using the above constants the equation will be :

EXAMPLES.

What initial number is required for the square of 3 X 3, with
i as the increment, to produce 1903 as the summation?
Transposing the last equation :

or

.903 -(13 XD ,

M

Totals = 1903.

Fig. 139-

We will now apply the same example to a square of 4 X 4,
which case:

1903 — (30 x i) _

4

= Initial No.

47?

4* 7 '

Totals = 1903.

Fig. 140.

Also to a square of 5 X 5-

IQO3 (6O X l) C.Q /; T v i XT

-^- = 368.6 = Initial No.

A84-6

472-6

•37*-

386.6

SSf-6

&S2.6

AS?. 6

370.6

376.6

Totals = 1903.

Fig. 141.

MAGIC SQUARES.

579

And for a square of 6 X 6.
1903— (I05 >

= Initial No

32 ft

322 r

3//T

333 7-

306 j-

32/

32* r

JAJ

302.?

•30? T

Totals
= 1903-

Fig. 142.

Squares built up with progressive increments of I, have only
thus far been considered. As before stated, this method can be
varied by using increments greater or less than unity, but the same
increment number must be used continuously throughout the con-
struction of any given square.

EXAMPLES.

What initial number must be used in a square of 3 X 3> with
increments of 3, to produce a summation of 1903?

Applying the equation given on page 578, but making b = 3
instead of I, we have:

1903 -(12X3) =622Vs.

6221/8 is therefore the initial number and by using this in a
3X3 square with progressive increments of 3, the desired results
are obtained.

628$

6*6$

Totals = 1903.

Fig. i43-
To find the initial number with increments of 10.

(12 X 10) T .... , XT

^ — — '- = 594V8 = Initial No.

THE MONIST.

Totals = 1903.

Fig. 144.

Or to find the initial number with increments of 1/3.
19°3 (12 X V3) _ £,„ _ T«;f,-oi No.

633

Totals = 1903.

Fig. 145-

These examples being sufficient to illustrate the rule, we will
pass on another step and show how to build squares with predeter-
mined summations, using any desired initial numbers, with a proper
increment.

EXAMPLES.

What increment number must be used in a square of 3 X 3,
wherein I is the initial number and 1903 the desired summation?
Referring to equation on page 578 and transposing, we have :

or

K

1903— (i X3) .

- = b — Increment.

12

i581/3 = Increment.

Starting therefore with unity and building up the square with
successive increments of i581/8, we obtain the desired result.

Totals = 1903.

Fig. 146.
When it is desired to start with any number larger or smaller

MAGIC SQUARES.

than unity, the numbers in the equation can be modified accordingly.
Thus if 4 is selected as an initial number, the equation will be:

I9Q3- (4 X 3) = I,i2 = Increment.

Totals — 1903.

Fig. 147.

or with an initial number of 5.

1903— (5X3) _

12

= Increment

63 4

Totals == 1903.

Fig. 148.
With an initial number of 500.

1903 -(500X3) = 33Vl! = Increment.

6 77

Totals = 1903.

Fig. 149.

With an initial number of 1/8.

I903—(V»X3) ...

12

_ Increment.

/2/fJll.

Totals = 1903.

Fig. 150.
It is thus demonstrated that any initial number may be used

582

THE MONIST.

providing (in a square of 3 X 3) it is less than one-third of the sum-
mation. In a square of 4 X 4 it must be less than one-fourth of the
summation, and so on.

To illustrate an extreme case, we will select 634 as an initial
number in a 3 X 3 square and find the increment which will result
in a summation of 1903.

1903 -(634X3) = 1 Incrcmcnt.

12

6 At/

Totals = 1903.

Fig. 151.

In the case of a square of 4 X 4, using i as a starting number
and 1903 as a summation:

1903- (IX 4) = 6 increment.

30

6<??.*

760.6

3*7.

. 2.

3/7.

J/0. <P

6 S#

. 2

Totals = 1903.

Fig. 152.

As a final example of this rule we will select 475 as a starting
number for a 4 X 4 square, the summation to be 1903.

1903 -(475X4) = tl = Increment>
30

#7*-*

«-?*-.?

#76. 3

Totals — 1903.

Fig. IS3-
Having now considered the formation of magic squares with

MAGIC SQUARES.

583

predetermined summations by the use of proper initial numbers
and increments, it only remains to show that the summation of any
square may be found, when the initial number and the increment
are given, by the application of the equation shown on page 578, viz. :

EXAMPLES.

•

Find the summation number for a square of 3 X 3 using 5 as
the initial number, and 7 as the increment.

(5 X 3) + (12 X 7) = 99 = Summation.

ft*

s~

40

'9

JJ

*7

*6

6/

/ z

Totals = 99.

Fig. 154-

What will be the summation of a square of 4 X 4 using 9 as
an initial number and 1 1 as an increment ?

(9X4) + (30 X ii ) = 366 = Summation.

<1

/6t

/6~Z

42.

/3f>

6> 4

7*

97

ft

/of

"9

J-3

/*/

3/

20

'?V

Totals = 366.

Fig. 155 .

The preceding equations may also be used for the construction
of magic squares involving zero and minus quantities, as illustrated
in the following examples.

What will be the summation of a square of 3 X 3, using 10 as
the initial number with — 2 increments ?

(10 X 3) + (12 X — 2) = 6 = Summation.

Totals = 6.

- ¥

/o

o

6

2

- 2

&

- 6

9

Fig. 156.

THE MONIST.

What initial number must be used in a square of 3 X 3 with
increments of — 3 to produce a summation of 3 ?

" ->-1— - 3/ = i* = Initial No.

Totals = 3.

Fig. 157-

What initial number is required for a 3 X 3 square, with in-
crements of i, to produce a summation of o?

o — (12 X i) T •*• i XT

' —

Totals = o.

3

- <p

/3

_ 2

7

/

- s-

«

_//

/o

3

J

-*

'

— «

0

2,

- /

*

- J

Fig. 158.

What initial number is required for a 3 X 3 square, using in-
crements of — 4 to produce a summation of o ?

o— (12 X -4) _.<_
3

I6 = Initia,

-/2

/A

- «

8

fl

- f

*

-sA

/ Z

Totals •=. o.

Fig. 159-

What initial number must be used in a square of 3 X 3 with
increments of i, to produce a summation of — 6?

— 6— (12X1) _ 6^
3

Totals = — 6.

/

-6

— /

— 4

_ 2.

O

- 3

t

— <r

Fig. 160.

MAGIC SQUARES.

What increment must be used in a square of 3 X 3 wherein
is the initial number, and 21 the required summation?

2'~(~5X3) =3 = Increment.

Totals = 21.

585

5

/6

— J-

/<?

/

7

/3

4

£9

- 2.

Fig. 161.

What increment must be used in a square of 3 X 3 wherein 12
is the initial'number and — 12 the required summation?

— I2 — (I2X3) T

a J/ = — 4 = Increment.

12

-/6

/2

_ f

/t

-&

— S2.

O

— 20

f

Totals = — 12.

Fig. 162.

What increment must be used in a square of 4 X 4 wherein 48
is the initial number and 42 the summation?

42— (48X4) . _T~

Totals = 42.

Fig. 163.

The foregoing rules have been applied to examples in squares of
small size only for the sake of brevity and simplicity, but the prin-
ciples explained can evidently be expanded to any extent that may
be desired.

Professor Scheffler and others have ingeniously applied some
of the curious principles of the magic square to various figures such

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586 THE MONIST.

as triangles, rectangles, pentagons, hexagons, etc., and magic cubes
of various sizes have also been constructed.

It would be outside the scope of the present article to undertake
the study of these interesting problems, but any who desire to learn
something about them may find a brief description of same, with
a few examples, in Mathematical Essays and Recreations by Her-
mann Schubert.*

W. S. ANDREWS.

SCHENECTADY, N. Y.
* The Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago, 111.

THE PROBLEM OF UNITY AND THE NOETIC
POWER OF THE HEART.

"And I perceived myself to be far off from Thee, in
the region of unlikeness, as if I heard this Thy voice
from on high :

" 'I am the food of grown men ; grow, and thou shalt
feed upon Me; nor shalt thou convert Me, like the food
of thy flesh, into thee, but thou shalt be converted into
Me.'....

"And I said: 'Is Truth therefore nothing because it
is not diffused through space finite or infinite?'

"And Thou criedst to me from afar:

" 'Yea verily, I AM THAT I AM/

"And I heard as the heart heareth, nor had I room to
doubt, and I should sooner doubt that I live than that
Truth is not, which is clearly seen "

Confessions of Saint Augustine, Dr. Pusey*s transla-
tion, p. 155.

'T^HE recent discussions of the infinite, replete as they have been
-•• with interest to both the mathematician and the philosopher,
have left quite untouched one historic aspect of the problem and
one salient characteristic of the modern definition. As this feature
has far-reaching implications in the realm of theology as well as
philosophy, and leads to a distinctly monistic interpretation of life,
The Monist seems a fitting forum in which to attempt its exposition
and analysis.

For any collection, concept, or thing to be proper object of
thought it must be unambiguous and capable of being viewed as
in some sense a whole or unit. The traditional difficulty in the con-
cept of infinite collections is how to view as a whole or unit that
which is explicitly defined as endless. There is no need to repeat

588 THE MONIST.

here the arguments for and against the validity of this objection.
One aspect of the problem alone is pertinent to our ends.

The notion of wholeness or unity is found to imply one or all
of three qualities.

1. Containing all of a certain class or kind of objects.

2. Excluding all of every other class or kind of objects.

3. Recognizable as in itself an individual. This recognition
taking place through the individuality of the self of the
thinker or knower.

The first of these qualities or attributes has reference to the
interior constitution or elements of that which is viewed as a whole ;
the second refers to that which is exterior to the object conside*" " ,
and the third has no reference at all save to the self of the knower.

The older definitions and concept of infinite assemblages ob-
scured the first of these qualities while emphasizing the second.
The numbers derivable by continued additions of one to the number
n present an assemblage obviously infinite in the old sense. The
quality of wholeness in this assemblage is imparted not by having
all such numbers present to the view, but by the certainty that any
such number may be viewed and by the definite exclusion of all
other numbers or objects. As Cantor has phrased it, "it is intrinsic-
ally determined of everything in the universe, whether it is or is
not an element of this assemblage."1 Hence the assemblage though
endless is still unambiguous.

But this lack of ambiguity and such unity or wholeness as the
assemblage presents, is by no means derived from its endlessness.
It arises from the character of the elements constituting it, — from the
law of their derivation. It is the unity of this law which permits
us to view the assemblage as itself a unit. It is a matter of accident,
or at least of subsequent determination, whether the field of this
law is infinite or finite. This dependence of the possibility of view-
ing an infinite assemblage as a unit upon a law connecting its ele-
ments, is of the utmost importance. Mere endlessness, without
the existence of law, in no wise presents us with a definite concept,

1 Ada Mathematica, II, p. 363.

THE PROBLEM OF UNITY. 589

with a whole, or with a unit. In this lies the actual negativeness
of the older definitions, far more than in the negative aspect of the
word endless. Yet this latter is not without significance.

All definition is a matter of reference or comparison. Assuming
the finite as the standard of reference, the infinite can not be derived
from it save by direct negation or by the use of the very idea whose
definition is sought. In the finite lies the infinite2 as in the infinite
lies the finite, but the relation between them can only be expressed
either through negation or through the infinite.

The power of the modern definition lies in its recognition that
the infinite can be referred only to the infinite and that every aggre-
gation of things to be viewable as a whole or unit must have some
law connecting its elements. If there be a law of self representa-
tion, the system is infinite ; if there be not, it is finite. Or, to be more
precise, any assemblage is infinite or finite according as there is or
is not a one to one correspondence between the assemblage and a
proper part of the assemblage.

Now here is the crux of the matter. In this not one infinite
but two are defined, the infinite whole and the equally infinite part ;
or as Dedekind hirhself pointed out, and as Borel, Royce and others
have ably expounded, an infinite number of infinites. The reference
necessary for all logical definition is no longer between the finite
and the infinite but between two infinites.

There is profound significance in the acceptance of such a proce-
dure. It is an abandonment of the self-imposed limitation of the
mind to the finite, of the one time delusion that man is a purely
finite being and that all his knowledge must originate in and be
referred to the finite. Once freed from this preconception, born
in us by contact with matter, logical indications of the infinite char-
acter of man multiply on every side. Professor Royce has argued
at length that the infinite sequence and order is the very type of the
self, and the self representation of infinite assemblages has been
skillfully connected with the phenomena of self-consciousness. In-

1 Cf. Professor Keyser's papers : "The Axiom of Infinity," Hibbert Jour-
nal, Vol. II, No. 3, pp. 542 and 543 ; and Bulletin of the American Mathemat-
ical Society, 2d Series, Vol. VII, No. 5, pp. 222 et seq.

590 THE MONIST.

deed it was the "thought world" of man that Dedekind used as the
assemblage on which to base his "existence proof" of the Infinite.
Though it has since been objected3 that such proof was "circular"
and must always be impossible as proof, the ground of this objec-
tion was not, as Mr. Russell took it, that some special axiom was
covertly invoked in discussions on the infinite, but that the sense
of the infinite was so deep rooted in the mind that it underlay all
proof, — that it was subtly presupposed in all argument and to seek
to prove it was as futile as to seek to prove one's own existence,
that in consequence it could only be exhibited, not proved. Emer-
son's saying, paraphrased from most ancient writings, that in each
atom the universe contrives to integrate itself, is given in this light
a concreteness of meaning not seen in it before. That which is
finite becomes viewed as but a determination from that which is
infinite, as finite numbers are defined through infinite series. And
the nature of man, through consciousness, through his power to
create, through his power of self representation, is seen to be tech-
nically and literally infinite.

But though man now knows himself to partake of the nature
of the infinite, he none the less but rather the more knows himself
to be one being and no other. Though we are freed in a large part
from the limitations of finiteness we are still inexorably bound by the
need of unity in every object of our thought or conception. The
problem of unity is no longer the problem of finiteness but is still
and always must be the central problem of knowledge.

The relation between multiplicity and unity, how that which
is one may be viewed as multiple, and how that which is multiple
may be viewed as one, has long furnished a fruitful field of discus-
sion and controversy ; particularly since all multiplicity has been seen
instantly to lead to infinite assemblages.4 In the case of these latter
it has been indicated that the unity is to be sought in the relation
between the elements, in the law by which this multiplicity arises.
It has been seen that the term infinite as used in mathematics is

'Hibbert Journal, Vol. II, No. 3, pp. 547 et seq.; No. 4, pp. 809-812.

4 Cf. Royce, The World and the Individual, Vol. I, Supplementary Essay.

THE PROBLEM OF UNITY. 5Q1

properly an adjective rather than a noun, — an attribute or quality
seen to pertain to certain assemblages derived and viewable as a
unit from other considerations than that of their infiniteness. It
has been said that mere endlessness is in no complete sense definitive,
for that which is endless may yet be sharply restricted and bounded
in an infinite variety of ways, each way giving rise to a different
concept. But if the assemblage is unbounded, unrestricted, and end-
less in all ways, to the notion of endlessness we have added the no-
tion of all-inclusiveness. The previous ambiguity no longer exists.
We have reached what Mr. Russell has called the infinite of highest
order, (holding in opposition to Cantor that such is possible)6 the
totality of all things of all kinds in all relations. We have passed
from the mathematical adjective infinite to the old theological in-
finity.

However much we may be arrayed against certain of the mod-
ern mathematicians, we are certainly not departing from ancient
tradition in holding that such a concept is very fundamental and
intimate to human consciousness ; and in agreeing with Mr. Russell
that it represents a genuine totality or unit, even though Mr. Russell
is himself inclined to deny the inevitable psychological and theo-
logical inferences of his position.6 Sf holding, we are presented
with at least one totality or unit which it is impossible to know by
reference to that which is exterior to it. This brings us to an
exaggerated form of a very vital aspect of the problem of unity;
how are we to know, in and of itself, that which is one?

It is a very trite statement, but one which must nevertheless
receive attention, that intellectual knowledge is always relative. The
mind compares, relates, orders, and correlates. It weighs relations
and compares things with things. The action of the mind is thus
always dual-, and so many-, pointed. It can function only in multi-
plicity.

Yet it cannot be denied we have knowledge of things in and of
themselves, such knowledge as is given to us by our senses for

' Cf. The International Monthly, Vol. IV, No. i, p. 95.
' Vide Mr. Russell's statement regarding the assumption of an infinite
mind in his reply to Professor Keyser. Hibbert Journal, Vol. II, No. 4, p. 812.

592 THE MONIST.

example, or by the resistance to the will. Such knowledge is not
one of comparison, and such reference as there is in it is directly
to the knower. Therefore the distinction between knowledge of a
thing in itself, and knowledge of the relations in which that thing
is to other things, is a distinction known to experience as well as
to metaphysics. Our problem is one of genuine significance.

In the modern definition of the infinite we have a partial answer
to our question. The multiplicity necessary for definition as well
as for all logical activity is there furnished by the interior structure
of the thing defined, by considering the whole and its part. This is
obviously a knowledge of the assemblage in and of itself, but it is
not knowledge of the assemblage as a unit.

The concept of the assemblage as a multiplicity and the con-
cept of the assemblage as a unit are entirely distinct. Though the
possibility of one concept may imply the possibility of the other, yet
the one concept is not the other, and knowledge of the one is not
necessarily knowledge of the other. Illustrations of this distinction
are easily found, for example the one used by Bolzano, the concept
of a drinking glass. Viewed as a whole it is one thing, viewed as
an assemblage of broken parts it is another. The first concept im-
plies that it will hold water, the second implies no such thing. My
friend is one thing, my friend and his indigestion quite another,
though this indigestion be chronic. But there is no need of multi-
plying trivialities. The fact stands out sharply that the concept of
unity presents the problem of knowing a thing in itself, apart from
its relations to other exterior things, and apart from its relation to
its own interior elements.

By the very nature of this problem such knowledge can not be
derived from intellectual processes. All multiplicity has been ex-
pressly eliminated, and multiplicity as we have seen, is the funda-
mental requisite for all logical thought. Repugnant as it is to the
pride of the intellect, flushed with the conquest of such wide realms
of nature, we are yet forced to conclude that in the appreciation of
a thing in itself, in esse, the mind is baffled : that the limits of multi-
plicity are also the limits of the field of logic.

But if the mind is many-pointed, the heart is single-pointed. The

THE PROBLEM OF UNITY. 593

action of the intellect is discursive, distributing the consciousness;
the effect of love, desire and will is to concentrate and hold the con-
sciousness upon a single object. That this retention and fixing of
the consciousness results in actual knowledge has been the claim
of the mystics of all ages. To this claim we may listen with the
more patience once it is realized that the inner essence and indi-
viduality of each and every thing in the universe, as well as the
unity of the universe itself, must remain forever unknown to us, or
be known through just such a process as the concentration of con-
sciousness resulting from love, desire, or will.

But we do not need to rely upon historic mystical perception
in order to be convinced that there are genuine noetic powers of the
heart. We may appeal directly to every-day experience. The knowl-
edge and understanding springing from love and sympathy are
neither remote nor hidden, but are among the most patent facts of
human intercourse. In common phrase, they imply the ability to
"put yourself in his place," and so to know him as he knows him-
self,— as an individual, neither by reference to exterior things, nor
as a sum of parts, but as a unit in and of itself. Reason about a
friend, and the knowledge derived is relative. We argue he is
kinder than others, more unselfish, wiser perhaps. Love our friend
and we perceive, not that he is kinder, but that he is kind, not that
he is wiser but that he is wise. Such knowledge is not comparative
but positive. In it there is reference, but this reference is wholly
interior. It is to the qualities or elements of the individuality, not
to anything without that individuality. As, however, the concen-
tration of consciousness continues, even this reference disappears.
We no longer view the qualities of our friend, but his individuality
itself absorbs our consciousness. We know him as a unit, — as that
unique something which he is to himself, and of, and in, himself.

This passage of the consciousness from qualities to inner es-
sence is equally manifested in the contemplation of natural beauty.
As we have viewed the sunlight on some distant snowclad range,
rising in calm still power from gracious slopes of green, it may be
the myriad tones of color, the exquisite contrasts and play of light
and shade that have first compelled our notice and admiration. But

594 THE MONIST.

as we continue to gaze these pass from the mind. The mind itself
is stilled and the consciousness of the heart awakens, wraps itself
around or flows into the scene before us, is moulded into its likeness
and knows its spirit and its inner meaning.

It is no reply to ask me what this inner meaning is. It escapes
and forever must escape the mind, for it lies in the inner world of
unities. It is felt by the heart, known by the heart, and by it the
heart is uplifted. Something of peace and power and eternity for
a time becomes our own. But it is not derived from reason nor can
any logic prove its presence. Yet the great artists have seized and
exhibited it. For as logic conveys the reference of the mind, so art
conveys the perception of the soul.

What has been attempted in these illustrations is a simple de-
scription of the actual change of consciousness. The appeal of my
thesis is to immediate experience. Its truth rests directly on that
inner recognition and certainty which is the foundation of all knowl-
edge, and to which it is the mission of logic to refer all things not
so perceived. It is a curious psychological phenomenon that knowl-
edge by indirection should to so many appear more certain than
direct perception. In the complicated structure of formally valid
reference such minds forget that that to which reference is made is
to the mind a pure assumption. Question any scientist as to the
fundamental concepts or laws of his science and he will frankly
admit they are hypotheses. Question the remote logical inferences
of these postulates and he will hold you in derision. Formal valid-
ity is of the mind. Truth is of the heart.

I am fully aware that in this last sentence I have exposed my-
self to the criticism of using undefined terms. What is Truth? I
reply, I cannot say. It forever escapes definition. But its appeal
I know, and it is directly to an inner feeling of certainty. It is ob-
jected that what appeals as certain to one does not so appeal to
another. Perhaps this is so, I neither affirm nor deny it. Then truth
is different for you and for me? Truth is individual. But truth
if truth at all is universal. Truly, but so am I and so are you, yet
need our universes be the same? Interpenetrating, interblending
they always are, but the infinite contains within itself infinitely many

THE PROBLEM OF UNITY. 595

infinites, all distinct yet interblending, each individual, yet each a
part, and, in definite sense, each one with the whole. So too, your
universe and mine, your truth and mine, different and individual
as they may be, may yet find their unity and reconciliation in a
wider universe, a more inclusive truth, with which your truth and
mine even now are one.

It is their reliance upon direct perception that constitutes at once
the strength and weakness of all mystical philosophies: their weak-
ness, because such perception is incommunicable; their strength
because the perception of the heart brings to the individual ex-
periencing it a depth of conviction and certainty equal to that of
self existence. It is impossible to read the utterances of the great
mystical teachers, from Siddartha the Buddha to the Christian
mystics of France, without being impressed with the genuineness
and immediacy of experience which they record. Contrary to popu-
lar opinion it is mysticism not materialism that is the philosophy
of experience. For what we know is that we are conscious and that
there are states of consciousness. The existence of matter is an in-
ference from the qualities of consciousness. So close to immediate
experience is mysticism that it is far more properly described as a
life than as a philosophy. Its answer to objectors has ever been, "Ye
have ears to hear and hear not, eyes to see and see not": its plea,
"Live the life and ye shall know the doctrine." Its noetic states
are states of being.

The commonplace illustrations already given should be suffi-
cient to recall the kind of consciousness I have described as single-
pointed or directly perceptive, and which, when directed by love,
results in a curious feeling of identity between the self of the per-
ceiver and the inner essence of the thing perceived. Born in the
stillness of the mind and concerned with unity, we have seen that
in this knowledge the reason has no share. Yet as a fact of ex-
perience this mysterious noetic process of the heart must take its
place with other facts, forming with them a multiplicity whose re-
lations are proper subject of curiosity and reason. But at the out-
set we must be prepared to demand only analogy, only an ordered
assemblage of mental concepts corresponding to the facts consid-

5<X> THE MONIST.

ered, — for by hypothesis these facts include other than mental terms.
Here the imagery of infinite collections may be again of service to us.

Following the path Professor Royce has made so plain, we
may view each and every individual as typified by an infinite se-
quence, struck out by infinitely varying laws of self-representation
from the infinite All. The actual individuality, unity or essence of
these lies, we have seen, neither in the mere fact of their infinity,
nor in any one term or sequence of terms, but in the single law by
which each represents the whole.7 In humanistic terms this cor-
responds to the doctrine that the true individuality of every man
lies in the manner in which he mirrors the absolute. In terms of
Christian theology it is that the essence of every man is his relation
to God. As each assemblage represents the whole so each assem-
blage is self-representative in an infinite variety of ways, — one way
for, and exactly corresponding to, each individual or other assem-
blage in the whole. Again in humanistic terms this corresponds to
the statement that each man is one with his fellow man. The terms
or elements of the assemblage may be variously interpreted ; as ex-
periences, temporal states, qualities, or what you will. The con-
sciousness of the heart, dealing with unities, lies in the law of self-
representation itself. The change and play of this consciousness,
directed by will, consists in a change of attention or emphasis from
one law of representation within the self to another. Love is the
drawing power or attractive quality of life. It seeks unity with
what it loves, and, when perfect, that which loves corresponds to
or is one with what is loved. To impose this correspondence upon
an infinite assemblage, is exactly to impose upon it the same law
of self-representation as is exemplified by the assemblage to which
it corresponds. The inner consciousness of the one who loves is
thus in exact accord with the inner essence, meaning or unity of
the one loved. The result is an identity of inner unity and an
exact one to one correspondence of all elements.

The knowledge derived from reason may be likened to the step
by step comparison or correspondence of the elements of the two

7 Cf. Professor Royce, op. cit.

THE PROBLEM OF UNITY. 597

assemblages. Quality after quality, or condition after condition is
made to correspond with a like element. But the underlying funda-
mental law of representation or progression is never reached. For
it must be remembered that no matter how great n may be, an in-
finite number of separate assemblages may have » terms in common.
Actual and complete correspondence between the two assemblages
is a correspondence between the laws of progression, acting at one
stroke between all the elements. It is never realizable as a step by
step verification, for this verification can never be complete. Here
lies the analogy with the failure of reason to ever know the unity, the
inner essence, or genuine individuality of that whose qualities it
relates. To know God or man, beauty or truth, each must be loved
and willed.

If this analogy be at all critically examined it will be seen that
in it the potential is viewed as actually present. Such is indeed my
view. Every thing is ; and everything that is, is real. All reality
is in some sense present. To the mathematician questions of reality
are resolved into questions of classification. Every concept is a
real concept ; every fact, a real fact ; every contradiction, a real con-
tradiction ; every potentiality, a real potentiality. No category, class
or domain is exclusively real. Error arises through attributing to
one domain that whose real existence is without that domain.

A plane triangle the sum of whose angles is greater than two
right angles is as real as one whose angles equal two right angles.
Yet we would be in error if we attributed the first to the domain of
Euclidean Geometry. For this system is a coherent unit. Each of
its axioms, postulates, or presuppositions, is a definite statement,
sharply dividing reality into two classes, one consisting of those
elements which obey this axiom, the other of those elements which
do not. Together these definite statements determine a domain
common to all, whose content the reason exposes in detail, but
which is absolutely predetermined before the application of reason,
and to which nothing can either be added or taken away. But
Euclidean Geometry does not exhaust reality and our triangle whose
angles are greater than two right angles finds its place in equally
real non-Euclidean systems.

598 THE MONIST.

So, too, the unborn child is equally real with the growing boy.
We would be in error at this time to ascribe to the first separate
physical existence. For, from moment to moment, the domain of
separate physical existence is sharply defined and its content pre-
determined. But no more than Euclidean Geometry, does present
physical existence exhaust the world of reality, though, like the
play of consciousness, it may in its temporal progression and in
infinite time sweep over and embody all reality. To question the
reality of any object of thought is to confuse the issue, — as well
question the reality of my keys because they are not in the pocket
where I first search for them. They could not be object of search
were they not real..

In this view the merely possible as well as the potential have
definite reality. They are present as all reality is present. Though
not realized in a given state of consciousness they are present in
consciousness as potential states, present even in the given state as
potentialities. In the analogy of infinite assemblages, we have seen
that each individual or assemblage is self-representative in an in-
finite variety of ways — one way for each other individual or assem-
blage in the whole. We have likened each law of self-representa-
tion to the state of consciousness which is knowledge of that assem-
blage to which this law corresponds. We may clarify the whole
matter and particularly the subject of potential consciousness by a
concrete illustration.

Let the assemblage of positive integers
i, 2, 3, 4

typify the manifested whole. It is infinitely self - representative.
Three such self-representations, typifying three individuals are

(A) 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 2n

(B) 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 3n

(C) 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 5n

The individuality or inner essence of these three may be likened to
the three laws of self-representation by which they were struck out
from the whole and by which they progress. These are respectively
2n, 3», and 5«, where n proceeds as the whole proceeds.

THE PROBLEM OF UNITY. 599

The state of consciousness corresponding to the knowledge of
B by A is represented by the law $na where na proceeds as A pro-
ceeds. It is

(A,) 6, 12, 18, 24,

I I I I

(B) 3, 6, 9, 12,

In this we see the inner essence of A, its twoness, determining the
type of correspondence existing between it and B, determining its
reaction from the external universe. The inner essence of B de-
termines the law of self-representation within A, the selection and
bringing to attention of a certain definite sequence of elements from
the infinite richness of A's interior content. Another way of putting
it would be the common expression that A, knowing B, vibrates in
unison or harmony with B, the character of vibration is determined
by B, but that which vibrates and the character of unison or harmony
is determined by A, by the character of the harmony between A and
the whole.

The state of consciousness corresponding to the knowledge of
C by A is similarly given by the law $na and is :
(Ac) 10, 20, 30, 40,

I I 1 I

(C) 5, 10, 15, 20,

Now obviously these noetic processes by which A knows B and C
are self-representative processes within A, and whether the process
AC was ever actually performed by A or not it is always potentially
present in A's individuality. According to our analogy therefore
the knowledge of everything in the universe is potentially present
in each individual thereof. Moreover there is that which corresponds
to this potential knowledge in every noetic state of consciousness.
That is to say, in the state of consciousness in which A knows B
there is that which corresponds to the state by which he would know
C. Thus within

(A,) 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 3nfl

there is the sequence or representative system $n where n pro-

ab b

ceeds as A6 proceeds

6<X) THE MONIST.

(A ) 30, 60, 90, 120,

o

(C) 5, 10, 15, 20, .......... SH

Thus every noetic state contains within itself the potentiality
of every other noetic state, and knowledge of the inner essence of
any one thing in the universe contains in potentiality knowledge of
every other thing and of the whole itself. The correspondence (6)
between this potential knowledge and its object, depends both upon
the inner essence of the knower (2) and the inner essence of the
object (3) of the noetic state in which this potentiality is viewed
(2X3=6) ; while its rhythm or essence (30) depends upon both
these factors and also upon the inner essence (5) of its object.

(2X3X5=30.)

Beyond its application to potential consciousness this illustra-
tion bears upon a very common phenomenon of affection. We are
all familiar with examples where what is loved is in reality a product
of the lover's imagination, — a concept and pictured individuality
which has but a remote correspondence to that to which it is at-
tached in the lover's mind. In this attachment there is obvious error.
But this error and confusion of identity in no way arises from any
failure or uncertainty in the noetic power of love but solely in a
failure actually to love the one we call our friend. Nevertheless
we have seen that, though the ideal conception alone be loved, yet
in the noetic state engendered there throbs a minor rhythm gen-
uinely, if remotely, corresponding to the object to which we mis-
takenly attribute the fundamental chords. This lies in the heart
as potential knowledge, and I would submit that its presence there
may in the midst of error constitute a deeper insight into verities
than any faultless mastery of attributes can give. A text for such
a thesis might well be drawn from our modern nature books, which
breathe a love of all wild life, but whose anthropomorphic animal
psychology is not free from criticism.

Suggestive and illuminating as it is to follow the analogy of in-
finite sequences along other of its manifold ramifications — into the
realms of free-will and predestination, of invariance and continuity
in a world of change, of distinction between terms and relations,

THE PROBLEM OF UNITY. 6oi

and of how all its possible relations lie wrapped in the nature of
the term itself, — these though interesting do not here concern us.
The process of the realization of potential knowledge now claims
attention.

Here we are apparently confronted with two general methods
of procedure. The first is the process of comparison, elimination,
and generalization ; the second of free conception or, as I trust will
become obvious, of direct perception. These are generally consid-
ered as quite distinct. The first, being scientific in character, is
supposed an act of the intellect, to which we are impelled, and
whose results are determined, by the facts themselves. The other
is popularly viewed as a rather purposeless and entirely arbitrary
act of the imagination having little reference to facts of any kind.
On examination, however, the aspect of logical necessity is found
largely to disappear from the first process and the two are seen to
be by no means as different as they were at first thought. For
however great a part ratiocination may play in the comparison an-
tecedent to generalization, the conception of the general law itself
is never an act of reason. Always it is creative. In it there is
choice, desire, will, but never logical compulsion. By it something
new is born from the world of the potential to the world of the
actual, — something other than, and in no legitimate sense a con-
sequence of, what has preceded. For as any given set of terms
are included in an infinite number of infinite sequences, so any given
body of phenomena admit of an infinite variety of explanation,8
and find their place in infinitely varied systems of potential knowl-
edge. Nor is one of these true and all others false. As a landscape
may be represented by a verbal description, a painting, or a map,
so we may choose at will the type of correspondence between our
concepts and phenomena.

But it is not this freedom of permitted correspondence which
causes the instability and ever changing fashions in scientific hy-
pothesis. It is an inherent weakness resident in the very nature

8 Cf. Poincare, "Relations entre la Physique Experimentale et la Physique
Mathematique," (Rapports presentes au Congres Internationale de la Physique.
Paris, 1900. Tome I, p. i.)

6O2 THE MONIST.

of the scientific method. Its cause and origin lie wrapped in the
problem of unity. Patiently, laboriously, with marvelous ingenuity,
from generation to generation science has observed and related
terms. But till the end of time such accumulating data can never
reveal their inner essence. For so long as they be finite, they are
not definitive. The truth, the general law by which they represent
the whole, is not determined by them.

But if further observation cannot reveal the truth it may point
out error. Though n + i distinct terms, as well as n, admit of
an infinite number of containing sequences or functional laws, yet
there are an infinite number of sequences which contain the first
n terms and which do not contain the added n -f- ist. Every new
observation eliminates an infinity of previously valid possible hy-
potheses. But this elimination is never exhaustive and by it deter-
mination is never reached. Thus it is that generalization succeeds
generalization and brilliant hypothesis gives way to hypothesis still
more fertile, — each proceeds for a space in unison with the ad-
vancing sweep of recorded facts, then their orbits part.

It has often been held that mathematical induction presented
a special exception to the otherwise universal impossibility of logical
generalization. Such is not the case, for the two processes are
totally distinct. Generalization is concerned with terms. Mathe-
matical induction is concerned with the unity of the entire assem-
blage, with the law of its progression. In brief, proof by mathe-
matical induction consists of this: Having given the law of pro-
gression it is shown that a certain property or quality is an invariant
of this progression. If, therefore, this property is found anywhere
in the assemblage it is known to be present everywhere. The un-
fortunate statements of this proof in mathematical text books have
done much to conceal its genuine philosophic import. It is, in effect,
a determination of the unchanging qualities of an individual through
a knowledge of the inner essence or unity of the individuality itself.
In this, reason appears as but the interpreter of the intuition, reveal-
ing the content of the concepts given it.

A review of the successive generalizations and hypotheses of
science thus shows every advance to be a new, and in large part free.

THE PROBLEM OF UNITY. 603

conception of the creative imagination; a substitution of a unity
known, because self-created, for a unity unknown but felt. Toward
these conceptions we are guided by the observed facts, but in their
creation there is always choice, always will, — always something ex-
pressing the human purpose and contributed from the heart of man
himself. To understand the process by which the potential becomes
the actual we must look to the heart and the will.

We have already seen that in the knowledge of the heart the
potential is ever present. The existence of will and desire alike
depend upon this presence. For desire is the yearning of the heart
for what is not yet realized, and will is precisely that power by which
realization is accomplished. As the essence of man is one with the
essence of the whole, so, given over to the desire of his heart, man
is lifted to the utmost limits of the manifested universe. Around
him is the swirl and vague chaotic rush of unborn things, — formless
but infinitely potent. All that is, is seen upborne by what is yet to
be. So standing, as a God between two worlds, man knows him-
self of both. Here, in this infinite wild sweep, is the battle of his
will. By it he claims his own and compels the law of his desire.
By the heart of man, from the unseen is born the seen.

In the analogy of infinite sequences we have shown this to be
the bringing to attention of a definite law of progression or self-
representation from the infinite variety of possible self-representa-
tions. If the total nature of man, the universe of his potential con-
sciousness, were likened to the assemblage of positive integers, the
totality of known or realized realms might be represented by all the
sequences r.n where r is any given constant number and n takes
all integral values. Then the creation of a new domain of thought
could be symbolized by the forcing to attention of some hitherto
purely potential system, such as the sequence of primes or the se-'
quence of powers of r, rn. Present they have always been, but in
the knowledge of their unity something new is born. The potential
has become the actual.

It is not without interest to perceive that the totality of such
potential and so realizable sequences within any assemblage is of a
far higher order of infinity than the assemblage itself. This fact has

604 THE MONIST.

distinct bearing on philosophic speculations as to the purpose of
manifestation and the value of individualized consciousness, as by
this it would appear that full self-realization would make the indi-
vidual far other and greater than he is. Such considerations how-
ever transcend the limits of this paper.

The conclusions that I would draw from these views are as
manifold and wide reaching as my subject. To one alone can I
give prominence. It constitutes a twofold plea; first for the culti-
vation of the heart, and second for attention to its dictates. I make
this plea not as a moralist, nor as a humanitarian, I can lay no claim
to either, but solely as a man of science, as a lover of knowledge.
To the heart ultimately all things are referred. In the depth of
appreciation, in the sense of oneness with all that is, in the love of
truth, in the purity of desire, and in the strength of will, must be
sought the power by which alone knowledge is born. To know
fully and in detail we need the keenness and precision of the trained
reason, but to know at all we need some power of the heart.

And if this be granted me then I plead that the voice of the
heart be not so often scouted. That which vibrates in it is in truth
the song of life. We are not other than the whole. The idea we
find within the heart is not set over against the universe but is its
very essence, embodied in us as its image. I do not plead for blind
acceptance. I plead only that to the voice of the heart we listen as
to the voice of the senses. Neither lies to us. Sometimes we mis-
interpret each. But the test is always through the will. "Live the
life and ye shall know the doctrine."

HENRY BEDINGER MITCHELL.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

THE SEMITIC CITY OF REFUGE.

AMONG the most interesting and important factors in the so-
*^ cial development of primitive civilizations must be accounted
the right of asylum. Its precise influence is yet to be determined.
Data now accessible suggest that it may have been a factor in the
earlier stages of all races, yet may have varied greatly in its actual
contributions to progress. Its working theory seems originally to
have been that the spirits of a given locality must not be disturbed.
There was no real conception of the rights of the human individual,
no abstract ideal of liberty for man. Connected especially with
taboos and superstitions concerning blood, the right of asylum pri-
marily declares that no blood must be shed within a certain tract,
lest the local genius be enraged : hence' animals as well as men are
protected. Any one who preferred to risk giving minor offense
to the deity of the place, rather than trust to the mercy of the
enemy, would quickly discover the possibility of asylum. But as
unexpected deliverances from peril impress men as profoundly as
unexpected disasters like the deluge, the fall of Sodom, or of the
kingdom of Israel, or the making of the pitch-lake of Trinidad, we
must admit that here and there places have become noted sanctu-
aries after such deliverance, just as suddenly destroyed places are
in consequence of such destruction deemed accursed. Yet we may
not assume that this order of events has been at all general in the
development of sanctuaries ; we must remember that the sacred spot
is sometimes first marked by the occurrence there of some disaster,
as the abode of a spirit who must not be disturbed. Some rough
outlines of subsequent development, however, may be recognized
upon collating data now accessible.

606 THE MONIST.

Spencer and Gillen report such sacred spots in The Native
Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 134 ff. No plant may be plucked
therefrom, no life may be taken. The animal fleeing from the hunter
is safe when it reaches the sacred tract. Chalmers and Gill report
similar sacred spots in New Guinea (see Work and Adventure in
New Guinea, 186 ff.) ; J. G. Kohl (in Kitchi-Gami II, p. 67) finds
the institution familiar among the O jib ways in the territory of the
Hudson's Bay Company. He knew of individuals who dwelt within
such tracts as fugitives from justice. Among all North American
Indians burial places are regarded with peculiar reverence, but per-
haps this is especially marked among Northwest Coast tribes. The
burial places of chieftains are to be especially guarded from sacri-
lege. As -a consequence, private individuals and medicine men
sometimes claim to be proteges of the spirits of the dead. In some
South African tribes and in the South Sea Islands, the burial places
of chieftains are asyla. In Samoa a tree at the burial place of a
chieftain famous as a dispenser of primitive justice is known as
an asylum for the criminal ; in this case there seems to be an appeal
to the spirit of the chieftain for justice. In the Kingsmill Islands
each chieftain has his sacred mark or device, usually of red paint.
A stranger may claim the protection of the chief and wear the same
mark. This almost leaves the sacred ground idea for that of the
clan totem or badge. But the sacred mark here is not tribal, it seems.
Among the Afghans, the tombs of ascetics and holy persons are
looked upon as places of refuge for murderers, where they may re-
main till the avenger of blood passes by. In most of these instances,
the connection with ancestor worship is to be noticed. Among the
Tshi-speaking peoples of West Africa the deity Brahfo has a sacred
tract within which antelopes may not be killed. Reville tells of
convents whose lands are enclosures for sacred animals, though the
monks hunt and eat such animals if outside the sacred tract (La
Religion Chinoise, p. 554). The Buddhist convent is an asylum,
even for political refugees. In 1824 the Siamese heir-apparent took
refuge in one from a usurper, remaining there twenty-seven years.
Ancient Chinese family tombs because inviolable, are sometimes
made the haunt of robbers.

THE SEMITIC CITY OF REFUGE. 607

In the above cases, we have relatively primitive usages. No
social groups are apparent as a development of the usage. On the
surface, the sanctuary would seem to be equally accessible to all.
Perhaps in some of these cases the sacred tract is too small to support
large numbers of people: especially if they are still in the hunting
and fishing stage. Or, women may not have the right of asylum:
hence a community could not easily arise. Our real interest lies in
the further development.

Father A. Boscana reports that sanctuaries existed among the
Indians of California. These were peculiar in that the criminal
who once entered such a place was thereby purged from his guilt.
He was free thenceforth to go whither he would. None might harm
him. We might venture the opinion that the limited area of the
sacred spot of a hunting tribe produced this modification : a hunter
confined to a few acres would certainly starve. It suggests also
how a sacred spot can foster the growth of a sacred class. The
southern Indians being agricultural, the sacred spots become im-
portant communities. J. Adair and H. Schoolcraft report the in-
stitutions of the Creeks and Cherokees. The Creeks had "white
towns" in which no violence could be done, and "red towns" or
"war towns." But these do not involve clearly defined social classes.
In Borneo we find further development. S. W. Tromp, in his studies
of the Dutch East Indies tells us that refugee criminals colonize the
sacred tracts, intermarry, remain as outcasts from all the clans, and
become the agents or servants of the local sultan, a terror and a
curse to the whole country. The descendants of such outcasts are
themselves outcasts. Here women as well as men are clearly in-
cluded in the refugee criminal classes. In Hindostan we find the
same stage. The Khatties of Guzerat worship the sun, and con-
sider themselves bound to extend the protection of the sun to every
one who comes as a supplicant, so that outlaws and desperate men
of every description find an asylum among them. The Kholies of
Guzerat seem to have been similarly privileged outlaws, till they
became intolerable to their Mussulman neighbors and were dis-
persed. In the Hindu Kush the Siah Posh Kafirs perpetuate a race
of murderers by such sacred villages, whose lawless inhabitants

608 THE MONIST.

have become a scourge to the neighborhood. Joseph Wolff men-
tions a curious tradition of their Hebrew origin. Mary H. Kingsley
(Travels in West Africa, p. 466 ff), reports similar sanctuary cities
in the French Congo and Calabar. The refugees are not the elite
of the land, and the simple stranger who falls among them quickly
acquires unpleasantly vivid impressions of their free and easy man-
ners. One would conclude, from such data, that gross abuse of
sanctuary is a great town-builder. James Sebree reports that in
olden Madagascar there were twelve great sacred towns whose
protection was desirable. They were famous as the former seats
of great chieftains. There also existed a "free" or privileged class,
who were in reality slaves of the government. Perhaps their origin
was like that of the Borneo knaves mentioned by Tromp. Both
peoples are Malayan.

A. B. Ellis reports of The Ewe-speaking Tribes of the Slave
Coast of West Africa (p. 220) that "any slave who takes refuge in
a temple and dedicates himself to the service of the god cannot be
reclaimed by his owner, but by paying a fee to the priests the owner
can close the doors of all the temples in the neighborhood to his
fugitive slaves." This case is interesting as illustrating a different
trend in the development of the right of asylum. We have here,
not a criminal taking advantage of the reverence for a sacred tract,
but a man securing certain advantages by formal dedication to the
service of a god. The particular class-development familiar in Me-
diaeval Europe as "benefit of clergy" is apparent here. Also, we
see a stage in which the effort is made to deprive certain classes of
earlier rights, and the effort of priestly temple-guardians to black-
mail wealthy neighbors. Perhaps a development of such sanctuary
for the fugitive slave is the law among the Apingi and other West
African tribes that any slave who can escape to the next village
can attach himself to a new master there and be exempt from all
claims of his former master. Yet this law may mean only the re-
fusal of a captor to surrender a runaway slave. Asylum for man-
slaughter does not exist in these tribes.

These data are from communities still existing, or but recently
extinct. As they represent tendencies in different surviving stages

THE SEMITIC CITY OF REFUGE. 609

of social development, we are in a position to determine more accu-
rately the meaning of ancient institutions. We know of the right
of asylum in classical literature. Roman historians have asserted
that Rome originated as such an asylum (Dionysius of Halicarnas-
sus, Antiq. Rom. 1,15 ; Livy I, 8; Strabo V, 230; Plutarch, Romulus
IX). Modern criticism has treated this statement too cavalierly,
not considering the anthropological data bearing upon the right of
asylum. Exploration, showing that the city is far older than the
traditional epoch of Romulus, has not disproven the statement in
question. Such right of asylum may have existed many centuries
earlier, have been abolished and have been restored by Romulus.
We shall presently consider evidence that such things actually oc-
curred in other lands. We know that a right of asylum did exist
at Rome in connection with the law of blood revenge. The latter
was early abolished, and the right of asylum reserved for slaves,
to offset in some measure their legal disabilities. Akin to this
sanctity of a given spot was the power of the Vestal Virgin to save
a condemned criminal. The same power is possessed by the Bud-
dhist monk of Burmah to-day ; but the rescued man must thereafter
lead the monastic life.

The right of asylum was familiar in Greece also. Debtors,
fugitive slaves, victims of unjust persecutions and violence, crimi-
nals of various types, sought refuge in such places. Even a traitor,
judging from the story of Pausanias the Spartan, could avail himself
of it. While the use of this right was more extensive than in
Italy, important sacred communities did not spring up in either
place, apparently because the sacred tracts early dwindled to the
bare precincts of the temples. Elis claimed continuous peace, and
the inviolability of her territory; but this was not regarded, save
during the period of the Olympian festival, when the molestation
of strangers within her borders was punished by fines. Yet such
a legend as that of the origin of the Spartans may point to seizure
of some ancient sanctuary by invading outlaws. If so, it would
suggest Sparta as a quondam sacred community, such as Rome was
asserted to be.

All the abuses and developments noticeable in modern com-

6lO THE MONIST.

munities were known in ancient lands. Legal regulations and re-
strictions followed. Tacitus tells of them in his Annals, III, 60-64,
IV, 14. The chief abuses considered are in connection with Oriental
sacred cities, those of the West being at the time relatively unim-
portant. Let us say that the Roman government was applying to
the East restrictions whose necessity had been realized centuries
before in the West. Some of the most important Hellenistic cities
of Palestine possessed the right of sanctuary, and some (e. g. Scyth-
opolis) were on the site of older Jewish sanctuaries. But the Jewish
city of refuge should be considered in connection with the other data
from the Semitic field. We should inquire if the Semitic institu-
tions appear unique, unrelated to those of the rest of the world, and
if the Jewish institution is unique among the Semites.

The suggestion that whatever be the origin of a sanctuary, the
development there of a sacred community will depend in part upon
the ability of a community to gain a livelihood within the sacred
tract, finds ample illustration among the Semites. We know that
Arabian physiographic conditions caused small fertile tracts to be
highly prized as peculiarly favored by some divinity. Any land
flowing with milk and honey was necessarily a holy land. Other
things being equal, the most fertile spot in the world would be the
most sacred, a garden of Eden. Large sacred tracts would survive
in the East as they could not in Italy or Greece. Various political
and social movements would produce a "natural selection," however,
among all these ba'al-favored districts.

Now Semitic survivals still show many large sacred tracts, as
compared with the bare temple precincts respected in Western
heathendom and Christendom. Burton tells us of Medina that the
haram or sacred land is an irregular circle, ten to twelve miles in
diameter, with the town in the center. All sins are forbidden within
this tract, but there are different schools of interpretation. Imam
Malik allows no latrina nearer than Jebel Ayr, about three miles
from the town, and no slaying of wild animals. Some authorities
even forbid the felling of trees, but others allow it, and it is general
practice. All manslaughter, save of invaders, infidels, and sacri-
legious persons, is forbidden. Drinking spirits and all sexual im-

THE SEMITIC CITY OF REFUGE. 6ll

morality are prohibited. There is a decided advance in theory,
whatever be the practice, over the rude robber communities we have
observed developing in other sacred tracts. The haram of Mekka
Burton describes as extending for several hours journey on each side
of the city. Legends make this sanctity of great antiquity, and
exaggerated tales of it are told. Ravenous beasts and birds will
not seize their prey within its limits, and big fish will not devour
little ones. Abu Hanifah would not allow a murderer to be dragged
out. The restrictions laid upon pilgrims during their pilgrimage
illustrate the above mentioned advance in sacred theory. The name
Mekka, signifying "concourse," probably originated in the meetings
at the sanctuary: compare "the gathering of the tribes" of Israel.
He who resides in Mekka by the Caaba is a jar Allah, or protected
guest of Allah. Perhaps the earliest inhabitants of the spot were
refugees under the protection of a local god. We may compare
the qualifications of the ger Yahveh of the later Hebrew period, in
Ps. xv. Robertson Smith in his Religion of the Semites, notices
gerim or sojourners under temple protection among the Phoenicians.
In Lecture IV, the right of sanctuary among Syrians, Arabians,
and Phoenicians is remarked. Renan thinks the ruins throughout
the entire valley of the Adonis indicate that it was once sacred terri-
tory. Van Lennep says (Bible Lands, p. 693) : "With Muslims the
shrines or tombs of great saints, like that of Hosein at Kerbelah
near Bagdad and of Fatima at Koom in Persia, afford an asylum
which is rarely violated. Superstitious veneration indeed so guards
these places that a refugee can be taken only by starving him out.
In Abyssinia there are five churches whose precincts are legal places
of refuge." Here we see sanctuaries originating in ancestor- wor-
ship. There is no extensive tract of land, as in the cases of sanc-
tuaries arising from ba'alism. Bent, describing Adowa in The
Sacred City of the Ethiopians, 162 f., says: "Taking sanctuary is
done by going to the porch, ringing the bell, and declaring three
times in a loud voice the intention of taking refuge." The refugee
is dependent upon friends for food. Even treason can claim the
privilege of asylum. The cases of Joab and Adonijah suggest the
contrary custom in ancient Israel. Women cannot share the right

6l2 THE MONIST.

of asylum in Ethiopia. Self-perpetuating criminal colonies cannot
arise. Moreover, the sanctuary privileges of the early Church are
linked with ancestor or saint-worship, rather than with ba'alism.
Curtiss, in Primitive Semitic Religion To-day, p. 161, says that the
shrine of any local weli or saint throughout Syria is of such sanc-
tity that it is frequently used as a storehouse for all kinds of articles,
no man daring to molest another's property and all being under the
protection of the saint. This practice will explain Tobiah's use of
the temple in Neh. xiii. 4-9. This protective power sometimes extends
over ten or fifteen miles of land. Here we have theoretical hagiol-
atry, which is only ba'alism revised to suit the exigencies of Mo-
hammedan creed. Such would be the natural inference from the
large size of the haram. Let us turn from institutions still in exist-
ence to those of the ancient Semitic world.

Very interesting material comes from Babylonia. As it has
not been previously considered in this connection, it is best to give
it in full, that the reader may judge the case for himself. Hugo
Winckler, in Alt-Orientalische Forschungen, I, p. 496 ff., offers a
translation of a very interesting fragment, K. 233. In one or two
crucial passages he seems to have misunderstood it. The following
translation offers some amendments. The final purport of the docu-
ment is not affected by the differences.

"Complaint which the Babylonians spoke before the king:
When the kings our lords took their seat upon the throne, they set
their faces to preserve our right of asylum, and the contentment
of our hearts. And we, whoever have filled our fields, whether
women of Elam, of Tabal or Ahlami, (have said) for their safety,
'Let the kings our lords establish what they have spoken.' The gods
have given you a broad understanding and a liberal spirit. Baby-
lon is a binding together of the whole (or, every?) land: it is
twenty lands in one. However many enter it, its right of asylum
is maintained; and 'injure one, (injure) the house of Babylon' is
its name, to establish its right of asylum. A dog that enters there
may not be slain.

"The kings our lords know that Eteru and his sons seized the
feet of (i. e. were loyal to) the king of Assur your father, up to

THE SEMITIC CITY OF REFUGE. 613

the time that Suzub son of Gahal came and slew all those who
seized the feet of Assur [and fled?]. Those who kept the charge
of the house of their lord Suzub [carried off?] and the hands and
feet of Eteru and his sons together with. . . .and brought (or sold?)
them in the face of (before?, or in defiance of?) my lord, and those
women whom [Silla] and Kuddinnu married in Babylon with them,
.... that expulsion which ? .... of the whole house of Eteru .... all
brought to .... and the foreign women .... and the kings our lords
from all lands. . . .when they alter our right of asylum. . . . [which
was established by] former kings. .. .and in the name of Babylon
women who are [wedded] in Babylon have their right to protection
with us maintained ....

"May the good deeds which the kings our lords have done to
us ascend on high. Under your shadow (i. e., protection), Bel-
ubalht .... daily prays before Marduk and Sarpanit for the kings
our lords."

Winckler rightly connects this protest with a remarkable pas-
sage in the Babylonian Chronicle, IV, 38, which records that on
the twentieth of Tebet in the first year of Samassumukin, Bel-eter
was seized and slain in Babylon. It must have been sacrilege or a
breach of peace of the most flagrant character to thus gain a place
in the official records. But an important companion document
Winckler has not noticed. This is a letter or brief of one Zakir,
No. 702 in Harper's Assyrian and Babylonian Letters; 81-2-4, 77,
in the British Museum. Like the preceding, it is much broken;
but the two letters have little obscurity as to the general principles
involved. A tentative translation is offered :

"The sons of Eteru of the Sealand concerning. .. .which the
king had placed in their care, .... they received, spoke thus : 'The
word of the king. . . .to your fathers before: They gave — ? in the
presence of the king of Babylon and Ubaru thy servant, thus : Was
not that promise of the king on this wise: Whoever suddenly
[breaks into] thy city to wantonly ( ?) make war. . .to set at nought
the ancient principle that in the peace of the city of Babylon [ye
shall dwell?] the king will inform (?) his heart concerning you.
[to redeem ?].... in Babylon what is established, thus: if the city

6l4 THE MONIST.

be plundered [and he is captured?] I will hear, and I will establish
his freedom.'

"Now that promise which [we heard] from the mouth of the
king of lands our lord. . . .those the king. . . .let them put in our
charge (?)... .the Babylonians. . . .and a consecrated house become
heaps, the king shall redeem (them?) with money: [and fugitives?]
as many as are brought from the land of Elam or the land of the
Hittites he shall dedicate to Bel and Zarpanit. [And now] the
dead whom the king brought to life have been sold for money : [and
the] good word which the king (our) lord pledged us the hands
of the king have not [performed ; and Kuddinnu and] Silla, dwell-
ing in Babylon he has allowed to be captured [and has not done?]
as they caused to be told us. The kings (our) lords. . . .knowing
the word. As they will, so let them do. From Zakir."

Whatever obscurity is produced by the breaks, for a few of
which I hazard a bracketed conjecture, certain facts stand forth
clearly. This last letter mentions Ubaru as one in whose presence
some pledge was given. We learn from S. 1028, Harper's [418],
that Esarhaddon sent Ubaru to investigate the condition of Baby-
lon, and Ubaru reported a general desire on the part of the new
settlers of the region for the rebuilding of the city and the return
of the captives. We can understand, then the reference in the
above letter to "the dead whom the king has brought to life." The
eve'nts, and the names of the various parties contribute to the
fixing of the date. We have here again the sacrilege recorded in
the Babylonian Chronicle as occurring in the first year of Assur-
banipal and Samassumukin. We are told by these documents that
Babylon protects the strangers of all lands, in the name of the gods.
This right of sanctuary extends to certain surrounding fields. How
large the sacred tract was we do not know ; but we may recognize
a reasonable basis for the marvelous stories told by Greek histo-
rians concerning the size of Babylon and Nineveh. It is quite pos-
sible that they confused in each case the size of the sacred land
with that of the walled city (see the size of the haram of Mekka,
above). Aryans, Semites, and Mongols meet on equal terms under
the protection of the god: so that Babylon is a truly cosmopolitan

THE SEMITIC CITY OF REFUGE. 615

city — "twenty lands in one." The freedom (duraru) of such ref-
ugees is a result of consecration or purification (sakutu) to the god.
This duraru is of old emphasized as a sacred thing: in the Code of
Hammurabi we find this word written with the determinative for
god (t'/tt)* before it. The letter of Zakir shows that the king must
if possible redeem captives or refugees carried off from Babylon,
and consecrate them to the god. Provision for such redemption is
extremely old: we find it in the Code of Hammurabi. The Code
also contains legislation, §171, in reference to the freedom of women'
married in Babylon ; which may be reflected in the emphasis placed
in the first complaint above, upon the rights of all women married
in Babylon, whether foreign born or native. No violence may be
done in the sacred tract: the very dogs are protected. An injury to
a single individual is an affront to the god, a sacrilege affecting
the whole house or sacred land of Babylon. The case which pro-
vokes the complaints is that of a Sealander who had settled in Baby-
lon. The principle is said to be very ancient. These data may give
us reason to question Johns' construction of the Code of Hammurabi.
He is inclined to doubt if foreigner and native received equal rights
under Babylonian law. We observe also that Assurbanipal is pledged
to maintain the right of asylum at Babylon, and that such right of
asylum, possessed by a city, was sometimes abolished by royal
authority.

The Babylonian word which I translate "right of asylum" is
kidinutu. Delitzsch rightly recognizes it as "protection," but seems
to think of royal protection extended to a city. Winckler and Leh-
mann conjecture Unterthanenschaft (Lehmann, Samassumukin II.
page 60). R. F. Harper, translating the Sargon Cylinder in
Assyrian and Babylonian Literature, reads "supremacy." Our docu-
ments exclude these. Babylonians would not beg to be kept subject
to Assyria, and Assurbanipal would not boast that he made the
Babylonians masters. Our connections show kidinutu here to be the
protection given by a city to a stranger in the name of its god. The

*Also in Sargon XIV4 ; Khorsabad 8, and 137 ; Annals 363 : cf. Briinnow
5468.

6l6 THE MONIST

seizure and murder of Eteru the Sealander and his sons is a gross
violation of sacred rights. Asurbanipal himself acknowledges the
Babylonian claim as to his pledge. In Cylinder L2 ion and Stele
S3 47-49, he says Hani Bdbili ukm kidinut Bdbili aksur — "I estab-
lished the gods of Babylon: I confirmed Babylon's right of sanc-
tuary," adding, "that the strong might not oppress the weak." L1 10
and S2 29 repeat the statement. In the letter K. 84, H, 301, the
king writes, "Your brotherhood (equality) with the Assyrians, and
your right of sanctuary which I confirmed." He connects confirma-
tion of kidinutu with the re-establishment of the gods. Later he ac-
knowledges, in the Rassam cylinder, that the sacred land was defiled
by the blood shed in his capture of Babylon. He purified the streets
and pacified the enraged divinities with penitential psalms and cere-
monial elegies, and with restoration of sacrifices upon the scale of
olden days. That the right of sanctuary which he confirmed was
not originated by him, we know from other inscriptions. Esar-
haddon calls Babylon an all kidini in I R 49, Col. IV, 18 ; in line 34
he says, "its kidinutu anew I confirmed."

We hear of other cities that possess this right of sanctuary.
Sargon in his Cylinder, Bull, and Bronze inscriptions tells us that
the kidinutu of the city of Assur had ceased, and that he restored
and confirmed it; also the sakutu of Harran. In the Khorsabad
inscription we find a claim of the restoration of the kidinutu of
Assur and Harran, which had ceased. In Khorsabad 7, Sargon
XIV, 3, Sargon stele I11, we have reference to sabe kidini, people
or troops under the protection of a god. These "proteges of the
great gods" are found also in the Balawat inscription, VI4. The
"protection of Belit" is mentioned in K. n, 35. It is interesting to
notice that the names Eteru, Kuddinnu, and Silla in the Babylonian
complaints above translated are all derivations of roots meaning
"to preserve or to protect." In a ten-column building-inscription
written in the first year of his reign and published by Meissner-Rost,
BAS. Ill, 252, Esarhaddon curses the man who shall disregard the
Kidinutu of Babylon confirmed by the lord of lords, Marduk. In
col. VII he says, sabe kidin subare ilu Anim u ilu Bel ilu durarsunu
essis askun — "As for the proteges of Anu and Bel (at Babylon)

THE SEMITIC CITY OF REFUGE. 617

I established their sacred freedom anew." Merodach-baladan II
in col. Ill, 10 ff. tells us he provided lands in the cities of Nebo and
Marduk for the sabe kidinu of Sippara, Nippur, and Babylon.
Their ancient lands had been confiscated : he determined their bound-
aries and returned them to the sabe kidinnu of Babylon and Bor-
sippa, musallim parsi — "confirming the decrees."

Another word of interest, linked with kidinutu in this connection
is zaku. In the Babylonian complaints above translated, the man
who has been "purified" to Bel and Zarpanit is entitled to the pro-
tection of the god. Delitzsch recognizes that zaku means, as in
Hebrew, "to be clean or pure," but the intensive form, which is the
one in use in the connection under discussion, he translates "to set
free." This somewhat obscures the leading idea. It is true that
every sacred personage or implement, everything which is dedicated
to a god or which has touched sacred soil, acquires among Semites
as among other primitive peoples, certain exemptions, or has its
secular uses restricted. In the Letters of Hammurabi, published
by L. W. King, we learn that such privileges were recognized fif-
teen hundred years before the Sargonid period. Temple servants,
patesis, and royal herdsmen claim and obtain exemption from the
corvte and from military service.* Yet it is a mistake to think of
these as "chartered" or "free" in our sense. They suggest rather the
"benefit of clergy" familar in mediaeval Europe. The repeated
uzakki, usually read, "I set free," in royal inscriptions seems fairly
to be "I dedicated, hallowed, devoted, or consecrated" to the god
in question ; for a god is always connected with it. Exemption
from certain secular claims followed as a matter of course. Jesus
alluded to a survival of it in his criticism of the Pharisees (Mark
vii. u). Its frequent occurrence in connection with setting aside

* Compare Ezra vii. 24. In D. T. I, iv. R. 48, Assurbanipal mentions free-
dom from sisitu confirmed to Babylon, Borsippa and Nippur. Another phase
of religious exemption comes from the inscriptions of Gudea : "After I finished
his chosen temple, the temple Eminnu, I remitted penalties, I made gifts.
During seven days obedience was not exacted. The mistress became the
equal of her maid servant, the master the equal of his slave; in my city the
chief became the equal of his subject." Compare the Hebrew prophet's view
of feasts as periods of license, and J. G. Eraser's discussion of the Sacaeau
in The Golden Bough.

6l8 THE MONIST.

land for some god has misled Peiser. In consequence he conjectures
that legalization of title is meant, and that following periods of
disorder certain kings applied themselves to adjusting contested
titles. We have such royal deeds, but they do not contain the term
in question, unless the land is secured to some god or temple. The
tenants are not exempt from tribute or rentals ; they merely change
landlords becoming tributary* to the god, and acquire thereby cer-
tain privileges. Besides the connection established between zakutu
and kidinutu in the Babylonian complaints cited, we have Sargon's
use of the terms. He speaks of the interrupted kidinutu of Harran
and Assur, as above cited, and in some passages he connects there-
with zakutu, as in his Cylinder and Bull Inscriptions. In the Khor-
sabad inscription the zakutu of these cities in line 10 is linked with
their kidinutu in line II.

Now an examination of the inscriptions brings out two or three
very significant facts. The linking of the two words is almost
peculiar to the Sargonids. We are continually reminded by this
last Assyrianf dynasty that they restored these rights, which had
ceased to be recognized. Just as emphatically we are told of three
great sacred cities so recognized : Babylon, Assur, and Harran. We
know of the effort to establish a modus vivendi on the part of Esar-
haddon, and his division of authority, so that Assurbanipal reigned
at Nineveh, Samassumukin as "King of Kar-Dunias" (L3,n), the
ancient "garden of God" ; and two other sons were assigned respec-
tively as "Great Protectors" of the priestly fraternities of Assur ( ?)
and Harran. We have above proof of the readiness of these cities
of refuge to protest against any infringement of their prerogatives.
We have the evidence of many lands showing the readiness with

*The ideogram for zakii is also ideogram for tithe or tenth. Land in
various Semitic countries to-day still pays a tenth to the king. See BAS III,
p. 582.

t Excepting Sennacherib. He claims no old priestly titles, as Sargon did :
he does not boast of maintaining the kidinutu of ancient sacred cities, as do
the other Sargonids. His successors must do anew what Sargon did. Sen-
nacherib seems as radical a reformer as Hezekiah, Josiah, Henry VIII, or
Juarez. The other Sargonids we must account religious reactionaries, or more
conservative reformers.

THE SEMITIC CITY OF REFUGE. 619

which abuses of the right of asylum may develop, and the testimony
of Tacitus that Rome was compelled to serious measures in the
case of such Oriental cities. We are then able to realize that these
sacred cities formed one of the largest practical problems that con-
fronted any Assyrian king. Sargon narrates in K. 4467 his recon-
secration to Assur of a tract of land originally set aside by Adad-
nirari, more than sixty years before. The conclusion is inevitable
that some one of the intervening kings had confiscated it. The case
is one of many now familiar in cuneiform literature, which enable
us to perceive that Assyria had its alternation of religious pro-
gressives* and reactionaries, just as Israel had. But the data at
present available show us the conflict in Mesopotamia in the array
of city against king or city against city. In Israel it is painted as
a conflict of god with god and we hear of no warring cities, save the
two capitals. But one portrayal is probably the complement of the
other. To rightly estimate the religious struggles in Israel, we may
find it necessary to consider them also as the struggles of tha mon-
archy with the pretentions of Levitical cities whose right of asylum
made them what the prophets declare them to be, centers of arro-
gance, uncleanness, and oppression; the "sojourners of Yahveh"
considered themselves delivered to do all manner of iniquity. The
destruction of the high places, the centralization of worship, would
not have been possible without the abolition of the political privi-
leges and sacred prerogatives of asylum cities. The religious in-
difference of some Hebrew kings is explicable, upon the supposition
that the monarch is concerned with such cities only so far as they
may obstruct his authority, while the prophet views their moral and
social influence. Assyria must have had similar champions of a
better order. The existence of many such privileged centers could

* Tiglath-pileser III mentions his seizing the very cities which Sargon
later "freed," and his imposing a tribute of one tenth upon them. But for the
sake of his old and faithful palace-herald he decreed the sakutu of the old
city of Kulbari, renamed it, and "made straight its road." So he records in a
stele in the Constaninople Museum: Scheil, Rec. Trav, XVI, 1894. Sargon
consecrates the city of Asur; his grandson Esarhaddon again frees it from
forced labor. Sennacherib must then have seized it as a royal possession.
So also Nebuchadnezzar I reconsecrates Bit-Karziabku, made saku by the
decree of a former king.

62O THE MONIST.

not, in the nature of the case, have been universally acceptable.
There is evidence that the Esarhaddon scheme was distasteful to
many, yet certain favored* oracles and religious centers rallied to
its support. But the final Sargonid regime may have been reforma-
tory, not reactionary. Confirming the right of asylum of three im-
portant ancient centers may but emphasize the abolition of such
prerogatives for all others. Sargon, it is true, in various inscrip-
tions says of Ur, Uruk, Eridu, Larsa, Zarilab, Kisik, Nimid-Laguda,
and Dur-ilu, "their ilu duraru and their plundered gods I restored
to their cities." But his successors do not seem to have perpetuated
this policy towards them.

Another Sargonid word linked with kidinutu is subaru. Esar-
haddon, already quoted, speaks of the sabe kidin of the subare of
Anu and Bel. Sargon fixes the subaru of various sacred towns.
This is perhaps a technical term for the haram or cultivable land
attached to each sanctuary city.

That the existence of such jealous independent centers was in-
compatible with any unified system of law or secular authority is
apparent upon the surface.f Babylonian and Assyrian history must
be considered as illustrating the same steps in social evolution that
we find elsewhere. The asylum city advances through corruption
and abuse to the point of judicial regulation. The right of asylum
does not appear in the ancient Code of Hammurabi ; but his letters
show that exemptions from civil and military service for certain
classes were recognized. Whether formally disallowed or not in the
criminal code, as in early Rome, we cannot yet decide. Probably
abuses were not yet felt. Treason may have claimed sanctuary privi-
leges, else the asylum city could not so seriously hamper royal
authority. But under the Sargonid reconstruction treason was

* In the Sinjirli inscription Esarhaddon says that he smote the yoke of
forced labor from the city of Asur at the command of the gods.

f Special privileges to sacred cities but meant heavier burdens upon others.
For illustration, Tab-sil-esarra, a saknu of Asur, writes to Sargon in K. 5466
that the new zakiitu of Asur had made it impossible to raise the usual levies
for the public works. Who was to do this extra labor? The curses in III
R. 41 upon any one who ignores this deed to the land and presents it to any
god, king, or patesi, also suggest much.

THE SEMITIC CITY OF REFUGE. 621

probably not accorded asylum privileges, for the Babylonians in
their protest are careful to state that Eteru and his sons were loyal
subjects to Assyria to the day of their death. The distribution of
the three asylum cities between the two great rivers is suggestive.
Palestinian geography necessitated three on each side of the prin-
cipal stream. Were Jewish reformers influenced by Sargonid
schemes ?

That the Israelite city of refuge as described in Numbers xxxv
is a late institution is now generally recognized by critical students.
The judicial origin attributed to the scheme can only mean judicial
regulation; for in Exodus xxi. 13, 14, the law admits that the altar
of Yahveh is the place of asylum, while after the Deuteronomic re-
form the altar of Yahveh does not exist save at Jerusalem. All the
anthropological data introduced would suggest their development
from earlier Levitical ^cities, through stages of abuse and judicial
restriction. The historical cases of taking sanctuary do not con-
cern these six cities, but merely the altar of Yahveh, wherever that
was. Jewish scholars (e. g. Maimonides) have claimed that all
Levitical cities once possessed the right of asylum in some degree.
We know that of the so-called Levitical cities some were important
religious centers before the period of Hebrew domination. Of the
six "cities of refuge," at least Hebron and Shechem were noted
Canaanite sanctuaries. Another mark of readjustment is that the
haram extends but two thousand cubits from the wall of each city,
quite at variance with the large and irregular domain of the primi-
tive ba'al or modern welt. The restriction of the right to uninten-
tional manslayers may not go beyond the Babylonian practice: the
Code of Hammurabi deals with such matters without discussing the
asylum.

Another feature gives room for conjecture. The refugee must
remain in the asylum till the death of "the high priest." We have
seen that Babylon, Harran, and Assur had their sacred heads, a
local urigallu or "great protector" or "elder brother" being at the
head of the priestly fraternities of the two latter cities. (Compare
the "sister of a god" of the Code of Hammurabi.) Is the Hebrew
regulation now misunderstood? Does it point to a time when each

622 THE MONIST.

Levitical city had its local sacred head, like the Mesopotamia!! uri-
galluf We do not at present know of any time limit to the protec-
tion afforded in Mesopotamia. But there may be significance in the
internal disturbances connected with the accession of each Assy-
rian king. Esarhaddon's scheme avoided these — save for a minor
disturbance at the ancient sanctuary of Nippur. Were his hostile
brothers opponents of a religio-political reactionary policy?

The anthropological data showing the assembly of foreign refu-
gees at great sanctuaries, added to the rights of the Semitic ger and
the practice of dedicating captives to a god, as did Mesha of Moab,
cause us to wonder if the transportation policy of Assyrian kings
tended to strengthen or multiply asylum cities, whose individual
interests were more or less mutually opposed. A transported god,
we know, was considered to be angry with his land : his protection
was for the time withdrawn from his worshipers. Assurnasirpal
tells of his peopling Calah with captives, and in a great monolith
inscription warns future kings not to seize Calah as a treasure house
or house of captivity. The captives he has placed there one shall
not confine: the royal abode must remain there; the redemption
(naptartu}oi the city shall not be violated, nor shall any camp in its
midst. Heavy curses are launched against him who violates the
pledges of this memorial stone. But Sargon seized it anew, and
placed the captives of Bit-yokin there.

When we add to the suggestions made concerning the evolution
of the Hebrew city of refuge the general fact growing ever clearer
that Israelite institutions were in no small degree a remodelling of
older Canaanite ones ; the fact that while sacred cities in general are
carefully guarded they are the prizes* of great struggles, like that
of the Koraysh for Mekka, of various peoples for Babylon and Jeru-
salem: when we add to these the fact that the ministers in control
of Semitic sanctuaries are sometimes of a different tribe or clan
from its patrons ,we have room for some speculations upon Hebrew
origins. Were the earlier Levites Hebrews who attached themselves
to local Canaanite sanctuaries and learned the ritual and manner of
the god of the land? Did they gradually displace the older race
till the latter became an inferior order, as in post-exilic times?

THE SEMITIC CITY OF REFUGE. 623

Were these post-exilic Levites in their turn "strangers who were
Levited unto Yahveh" as Is. Ivi. 3 may be read ? Would exilic prose-
lyting and training account for the enormous disparity in the num-
bers of priests and minor attendants in Ezra ii, and the remark that
some were unable to show that they were Israelites? Was Yahveh
known and worshiped in some Canaanite districts before the settle-
ment of the Hebrews, as he seems to have been known in the north-
land in Assyrian times ? Such fact, if it were established, would not
conflict with Budde's theory that he was also known to the Kenites.
Take the interesting case of the Gibeonite sanctuary. This place
originally must have been under the protection of Jerusalem. It
chooses to ally itself with the invading Hebrews, stipulating that its
sacred character be respected, and is attacked in consequence. The
story in Josh. ix. 23 that the Gibeonites were immediately made
very inferior temple attendants must point to their final relation
to the temple at Jerusalem: for the events immediately subsequent
to the invasion show that they were not scattered in Israel, nor at-
tendants upon the tabernacle, nor connected with Shiloh, the earlier
meeting-place of the tribes. They remain at Gibeon, and are locally
influential. We learn that Saul attempted to exterminate them and
failed. When David is warring with Ishbosheth, the forces of the
rival kings meet, under Joab and Abner, at Gibeon. Is possession
of that sanctuary an issue in the contest? As soon as David is
master of Jerusalem, he brings up the ark, and places it, not in
Jerusalem, but in a tabernacle at Gibeon, on the great high place.
Is that the sanctuary where Joab and Adonijah took refuge? Some
years after the placing of the ark there we find the Gibeonites able
to demand and secure satisfaction for Saul's attack upon them.
Yahveh is understood to be there — the Gibeonites have Saul's sons
hanged before him. Later we find Absalom tries to gain the sup-
port and prestige of the old sanctuary of Hebron; Adonijah, of
Zoheleth; but the successful claimant has control of Gibeon; his
opening religious ceremonies are at that shrine. Is there trace here
of feuds between sacred cities? Such data suggest interesting pos-
sibilities. Yahveh may have been a Gibeonite divinity. But only
archaeological evidence can be decisive in the matter.

624 THE MONIST.

Babylon's prominence as a sacred city may be parallel to that
of Jerusalem. We know a long struggle between the sacred cities
of the Euphrates and Tigris was terminated by an Elamite irrup-
tion which prostrated or destroyed older competitors for the hege-
mony. Babylon, not before in the front rank, took the leadership
under the Hammurabi dynasty. Had she suffered little from the
Elamites, and so acquired great religious prestige, as Jerusalem did
when it escaped Sennacherib?

Whatever conclusion be reached in purely speculative matters,
we may feel confident that the Semitic asylum cities are not to be
distinguished in their origin and process of development from those
of other races. They are characterized, however, by a far earlier
development, perhaps by a more logical one; and they remain a
feature and problem for a longer period, because a chief constituent
of early Semitic settled life ; while in other lands the sanctuary did
not always reach the city stage, or, if it did, remained in most cases
a secondary social feature.

In the Semitic world there is early manifest the effort to with-
draw protection from criminals, and to insist upon moral qualifica-
tions for the proteges of a god. Glimpses of such ideas meet us in
the West, as in Oedipus warned from the sacred grove of Colonus ;
but, broadly speaking, the West modified the institution by limiting
the tract or abolishing the asylum and improving the judicial sys-
tem. The Semite strove to preserve the asylum and establish some
qualifications of character as prerequisite to the enjoyment of the
right, while judicial procedure improved little. He who would com-
prehend the East must have the sacred land and the right of asylum
and the qualifications of the protege of a god before him at every
turn of history. In Europe, the free cities as they developed had
to contend with the barons, the king, and the sacred classes: in the
East, the free cities were composed of the sacred classes. A certain
feeling of the identity of Church and State was inevitable: the
Church is the logical survival of the Semitic theory of qualifications
of the inhabitant of the holy city.

Within the Semitic circle, however, historic investigation brings
the early Hebrew ever closer to his kinsmen. The movements in the

THE SEMITIC CITY OF REFUGE. 625

valley of the Great River are repeated in no small measure in
Palestine. The two ancient lands appear more and more clearly to
be unconscious collaborators in the task of preparing the way for
the religion of the Nazarene. A proper historical apprehension of
either of the three requires our knowledge of the other two. What-
ever we may understand by "the peculiar people," we cannot con-
sider them as apart from the world, unformed and uninfluenced by
the currents of ancient civilization: and when they acted as trans-
mitters of all that was best in the many currents that flowed through
them they best served the interests of the modern world.

A. H. GODBEY.
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

A MATHEMATICAL ANALOGY IN THEO-
LOGICAL REASONING.

COMMENT ON DR. WILLIAM NORTH RICE'S BOOK "CHRIS-
TIAN FAITH IN AN AGE OF SCIENCE."

TN the October issue of The Open Court there was a review of
-*• Professor Rice's book on Christian Faith in an Age of Science.
The review drew attention to a mathematical illustration of what
is set forth as a possible explanation of the resurrection of Christ,
— not as a miracle, but as a possible instance of natural law.

The singularity of the argument attracted my attention, and
having had, by the editor's kindness, an opportunity to read the
work, the following additional remarks may not be out of place.
So far as I can recall their statements, all writers on old style meta-
physics have claimed that moral and mathematical reasoning differ
wholly in their nature, and can not be applied to the same subject.

The Professor candidly states some of the difficulties which
call for explanation, and he evidently accepts some of the results
of the "higher criticism." In this paper I give attention only to the
mathematical illustration — which if applicable at all, either proves
nothing, or proves too much.

Dr. Rice gives a very good account of the way by which men
have discovered and formulated a law of nature. He gives also a
fair statement of the method by which mathematicians trace out
curves of a simple kind ; and then directly applies the same method
to curves of the higher orders, where it can not possibly apply —
as any one who makes the attempt will readily see. And yet this
implied but erroneous application is made the basis of an argument
to show that in a certain question of history, that which hitherto has

A MATHEMATICAL ANALOGY.

always been called a miracle, a contravention of a law of nature,
was no miracle at all ; or, at least, might be considered as an instance
of natural law, even if a very unusual one.

So far as the x is concerned, the equation is of the third degree.
This class of curves was quite fully treated by Newton, under five
heads, under the name Diverging Parabolus.

The x in an equation of the third degree, always has three val-
ues ; and these values may be equal or unequal, positive or negative,

CURVE REPRESENTED BY EQUATION ay = ± X V* C>

whole or fractional, real or two of them may be imaginary. These
different values give rise to the different curves. The particular
form given by Dr. Rice requires that one value of x is zero, b and c
the other two, of which b is the smaller, and it denotes the length
of the oval from left to right. But b may be of any size you please ;
and if it is made smaller and smaller, the oval becomes less and less ;
and when b becomes zero, the oval is reduced to a point: i. e.,
when the two smaller values of x are made equal. The curve shows

628

THE MONIST.

a point and also the infinite branch. But when the two larger val-
ues of x are made equal, there is no oval or isolated point, — only the
infinite branch. Wherefore the same equation may stand for oval
or no oval, for point or no point, but always shows the infinite

CURVE REPRESENTED BY EQUATION ay — ± ^/x(x — b) (x — c).

branch. But all the values of y are absolutely of one kind ; the equa-
tion being

ay =. ± V •*"(•*" — b) (x — c).

If in one example that value should be made to stand for a
case of resurrection, then all the innumerable points of the infinite
branch should have a like meaning, — and this would be the destruc-
tion of the whole argument. The argument, however, is wholly
fallacious, and, as hinted in your note, is liable to be considered
ingeniosus quam verius — "more ingenious than true."

R. W. McFARLAND.

OXFORD, OHIO.

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS.

SOME PHILOSOPHICAL TERMS.

It is generally admitted that one of the principal needs of philosophy at
the present time is a precise and satisfactory terminology. Without such a
terminology philosophers are liable to be inaccurate in presenting their own
views and to misunderstand the views of others. The present diversity is due,
in part to the existence of different schools of philosophy, and in part to the
use for philosophical purposes of several different languages, one of which,
the German, has but little affinity to the rest. I have no intention now of
entering on a general discussion of philosophical terms, but I wish to criticize
a few of the terms now in use and to suggest a few others.

To begin with, I want to know what philosophers mean by "experience."
The word is in constant use by thinkers of all schools and shades of opinion ;
but I have sought in vain for a clear elucidation of its meaning. I have
sometimes used it myself in criticizing other writers, because they used it,
and then I understood it in the vague sense which it bears in common speech
and general literature. But when I tried to ascertain more precisely what
those writers meant by it, I was completely balked. One school of thinkers
maintains that all our knowledge is derived from experience; another school
vehemently denies that, and affirms that we have knowledge independent of
experience and transcending experience. From those expressions one would
naturally think that experience must be a faculty, or power, of the mind,
which it uses to obtain knowledge. But I cannot find such a faculty in my
own mind, nor any sign of its existence in the minds of others.

Locke, who held that all knowledge is derived from experience, denned
it as the observation of external objects, and of the operations of our own
minds. But that is a very insufficient account of it; for, surely, feeling and
action are parts of experience. When a man says that he has had experience
of shoemaking, he does not mean that he has observed other men making
shoes, he means that he has made shoes himself; and when I had experience
of toothache, I certainly thought it was a feeling. But perhaps Locke or his
followers would say that all acts and feelings that are results of observation

630 THE MONIST.

are parts of experience. But what criterion have they for distinguishing
such feelings from those that arise from other sources ? They are not entitled
to beg the question and say that all acts and feelings result from observation
alone. Moreover, if experience is nothing but observation, the theory that
all knowledge is derived from experience is untenable; for a large part of
our knowledge is the result of reasoning, and observation is not reasoning.
And how about imagination? is that a part of experience? Most people, I
think, would say that it is; but it is very different from observation, and
contains an element which observation does not. Locke's definition is quite
as obscure as the thing he undertook to define ; yet I have not found any other
that is more satisfactory.

Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology defines experience
as "consciousness considered as a process taking place in time." But if ex-
perience is the same as consciousness, it is a mere platitude to say that all
knowledge arises from experience. Of course, all knowledge arises from
consciousness; nobody ever thought otherwise. But then what becomes of
the famous dispute about the origin of knowledge?

It seems to me that experience, far from being an elementary faculty or
function of the mind, is a highly complex activity, and therefore that it is
unphilosophical to speak of it as a primary source of knowledge. Yet philos-
ophers and psychologists habitually use the term in that sense, and as if its
meaning was perfectly well known. If some of the knowing ones will tell me
what it does mean, I shall be much obliged.

Another term about which I want information is "positive," as applied
to the philosophy of Auguste Comte. I have never seen a definition of it,
and have not the least idea what it means, or whether it means anything.
To my mind it is nothing but a proper name to designate Comte's philosophy ;
as if he had called his system the Parisian philosophy or the Clotilde de Vaux
philosophy; and whether it had a meaning for him or not, I have never been
able to find out. Of late years, too, I often meet with the term "positive
science," which is just as enigmatical as "positive philosophy." Is there any
such thing as negative science? If not, what does "positive" mean?

Among the philosophical terms now in use none are more common than
"subjective" and "objective." Their meaning is of course too well known
to require elucidation here. "Subjective" means pertaining to my thought or
consciousness; "objective" pertaining to the things I think about. My mind
is for me the only subject, and all other things, including other minds, are
objects. These words have had a great vogue, and it has been thought that
the distinction they express, and which is admitted to be important, can be
expressed in no other way. Hamilton expressly says so, and he illustrates
their meaning by the following example :

"Suppose a lexicographer had to distinguish the two meanings of the

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS. 63!

word 'certainty.' 'Certainty' expresses either the firm conviction which we
have of the truth of a thing, or the character of the proof on which its reality
rests. The former is the subjective meaning, the latter the objective." (Meta-
physics, Lecture 9.) Ruskin, on the other hand, declares that these are "two
of the most objectionable words ever coined by the troublesomeness of meta-
physicians," and that they owe their introduction to "German dullness and
English affectation." (Modern Painters, Part 4, ch. 12.)

I confess myself strongly disposed to agree with Ruskin. I particularly
object to the use of the term "subject" to denote the mind, as it is needed
in a wider signification. A subject is anything that has attributes. That is
the original meaning of the word, and is essentially the same as the gram-
matical and logical meaning. I have sometimes used the adjectives '"sub-
jective" and "objective"; but I have never liked them and have tried to find
substitutes for them. A few years ago it occurred to me that the terms
"noetical" and "factual" would express essentially the same distinction, and
express it better and more intelligibly. "Factual" needs no explanation; it
means pertaining to fact. "Noetical" from the Greek verb voku, to think, to
have in mind, means pertaining to thought or to consciousness in general.
The latter term is not quite synonymous with "subjective" which means per-
taining to my thought only, "noetical," pertaining to any body's thought; but
I maintain that the latter meaning is much the more important. In the
example given by Hamilton "noetical certainty" is our firm conviction of the
truth of a thing, "factual certainty" the character of the proof on which its
reality rests. Other examples might be given. In ethics, for instance, an
act may be wrong though the agent thinks he is doing right, and in such
cases we all agree that the agent is blameless. Such an act I call "noetically
right" but "factually wrong"; and these terms express the distinction far
better than "subjective" and "objective" do. So in the Greek language the
negative ov is factual, M noetical, and the same distinction appears in the
Greek moods. I commend the terms here suggested to the attention of think-
ers and writers.

Another philosophical term in common use for which I have no affection
is "esthetics" as a name for the science, or philosophy, of beauty and the ideal
arts. This meaning of the word is not in accordance with that of the Greek
word from which it is derived, which meant sensation or sense-perception,
and had no relation to beauty. It is an ill-sounding word too, and this is
still more true of some of its derivatives, especially "esthetician." The proper
name for the science of beauty is "calonomics," formed on the analogy of
"economics" from /ca/W? and vo[un6s. The Greek word v«5/zof does not denote
what we call a natural law, or law of nature. It means a rule, norm or
standard to which we ought to conform, and hence is specially fitted to use
in naming a normative science, which the science of beauty admittedly is.

632 THE MONIST.

The same etymology gives the adjective "calonomic," which will enable us
to distinguish the kalonomic arts from the economic arts ; and we can also
form a personal noun "calonomist," like "economist." I doubt if I ever have
occasion to use these terms myself, and perhaps others may not think them
worth having; but they are at least worth considering.

I have another word to suggest of much greater importance than any of
the preceding. English philosophical writers have often felt the need of a
word to designate the intuitive element in perception. Locke used "sensa-
tion" for that purpose, but he also used it in other senses, thereby causing
great confusion. Reid employed "perception," distinguishing it clearly from
"sensation." But "perception" includes an element that is not intuitive. When
I perceive the table before me, I not only perceive the thing, but also per-
ceive that it is a table; and that involves the general idea of a table which
I have acquired by generalizing from previous observations.

The Germans, as is well known, have a word for the very purpose in
question, namely, Anschauung. I am not a German scholar; but I know the
meaning of Anschauung, and have noticed the difficulty which English writers
have had in translating it. I have read two lives of Pestalozzi, in one of which
that word is rendered "sense-impression," and in the other "sense-perception" ;
both of which are wrong. The former is the worst, for Anschauung is an
act, not an impression, Meiklejohn, in his translation of Kant, called it
"intuition," and Max Miiller called it "perception," neither of which is cor-
rect. Yet the word they wanted had been in the English language for three
centuries, as it had previously been in the Latin language, and I am sur-
prised that none of them had the wit to find it. The word I mean is "aspec-
tion." This word, with the verb "to aspect" and other cognates, was often
used by English writers of the seventeenth century, but for some reason they
have all passed out of use except the noun "aspect," which everyone knows.
The following definitions and quotations, which I take from Dr. Murray's
English Dictionary, will show how these words were used in the seventeenth
century.

Aspect: To look at, behold, survey, watch. Gwillim, 1610: "As if they
were worn by two persons aspecting, or beholding, each other." Dareil, 1625 :
"Those which aspect the beames of the sunne think a long time after they
behold still a sunne before their eyes."

Aspection : The action of looking at, beholding, viewing. Sir T. Browne,
1646: "That this destruction should be the effect of the first beholder or de-
pend upon priority of aspection."

Aspectable: Capable of being seen, visible. Raleigh, 1614: "God was the
sole cause of this aspectable and perceivable universal."

Besides the three forms above given there is an adjective "aspectual,"
which will be useful in philosophy and psychology from its resemblance to

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS. 633

"perceptual" and "conceptual," and several other adjectives. Adverbs, which
are not given in the Dictionary, can be readily formed from the adjectives,
and there is a personal noun "aspector."

I propose to revive all these words for philosophical purposes. In a
work on the elements of philosophy, which I have begun to write, but may
never be able to finish, I am using "aspection" to denote the intuitive element
in perception, defining it as the immediate knowledge of concrete things,
whether those things are external or internal, material or mental. The word
is the more necessary to me because I maintain the doctrine of natural real-
ism, and could not express my views properly without it I first thought of
the word about twelve years ago, and did not know then that it had ever been
used in English. I speak of aspection by touch and all the other senses as
well as by sight, and also of self-aspection, which is the same as introspection,
spection.

The Germans use Anschauung to denote the aspection of an object by
the "mind's eye" in imagination; but, if we are to follow their example, we
ought to call that act imaginative aspection, and not confound it with anything
so radically different as real, or intuitive, aspection. The Germans use the
term Weltanschauung to denote the view of the world and its properties
which a philosopher forms for himself. But that term is not strictly correct,
for a philosopher's view of the world is partly the result of reasoning, and
therefore contains an element of conception. Nevertheless, "world-aspection"
has a vividness which "world-conception" has not, and, if properly understood,
there is no objection to its use.

It seems to me that the importance of this group of words for philo-
sophical purposes can hardly be overestimated, denoting, as they do, one of
the most important faculties and functions of the human mind, and one for
which we have hitherto had no name in English. And philosophers will not
be the only persons to profit by them; writers on science, art, and education
can use them also. They can be used in French and Spanish as well as in
English, but not, perhaps, in Italian, which employs aspettare with the mean-
ing of watch for, or wait for. In time, I hope they will all become a part of
the popular speech.

JAMES B. PETERSON.

DIFFICULTIES IN PHILOSOPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.

Mr. James B. Peterson's communication on "Some Philosophical Terms"
is very suggestive and contains valuable hints. His propositions concerning
Anschauung and esthetics we deem especially worthy of consideration.

As to his complaints concerning the apparent carelessness prevalent in
the use of the terms experience, subjective and objective, and positive, we

634 THE MONIST.

would call his attention to the fact that the difficulties of these very terms,
their drawbacks and their advantages, have been repeatedly discussed in detail
in several publications of the editor of The Monist. We have pointed out
the wrong uses to which they have been subjected and stated our own inter-
pretation of them without having as yet met with any criticism that might
induce us to change our views.

The term "experience," as used in the popular sense, means the practice
of an expert, and not mere observation nor purely "consciousness" which is
quoted as its philosophical definition. Yet the philosophical use of the word
is nearer the popular notion of it than Mr. Peterson might be inclined to
think. Kant identifies it with the result produced by sense-impressions upon
the organism of any sentient being. Though the experience of a shoemaker
in making shoes is somewhat different from experience as a philosophical
term in which sense it denotes the basis of all possible knowledge that ap-
pears in the range of consciousness, the process is fundamentally the same.
Reactions upon sense-impressions are various sensations of functions which
harden into habits, and the comparison of different sensations finally produces
consciousness.

That experience is an active process and not a mere passive attitude has
been recognized by neo-Kantians such as Wundt, and will be conceded even,
I believe, by those who have not insisted on it.

Mr. Peterson says that "all knowledge arises from consciousness" and he
thinks that "nobody ever thought otherwise." But his statement is more than
doubtful, for it would be easier to argue for the reverse and to say that con-
sciousness arises from knowledge; more explicitly, that consciousness is
simply a mental state in which feeling reaches such a high degree of inten-
sity that it can be produced only by a wealth of classified perceptions which
have been stored up in the shape of memories, and thus allow a comparison
between the present and past states of mind. Consciousness is not a faculty
but a function, and as a function it deserves its name only when a certain in-
tensity has been reached.

The term "positive" is not, in my opinion, an adequate description of
Comte's philosophy which as a philosophy might rather be called negative,
since it denies the right of philosophy to solve properly philosophical ques-
tions and would limit its domain to a mere hierarchy of the sciences. The
subject has been treated in a discussion with Mr. Louis Belrose, Jr., an ad-
herent of Comte's philosophy in The Monist? and the same subject is dealt
with in the author's The Surd of Metaphysics?

Belrose, "Defence of Littre," II, 403.— Carus, "Emile Littre's Positiv-
ism," II, 410.— Schaarschmidt, "Comte and Turgot," II, 611.— Belrose, "Comte
and Turgot," III, 118.

* See Index, s. v. "Comte."

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS. 635

Ruskin is apparently so little conversant with philosophical literature
that his condemnation of the terms subjective and objective which he puts
down to "German dullness and English affectation," may fairly well be ig-
nored. The terms are quite appropriate and, we might add, indispensable in
philosophy. At any rate, no other terms have as yet been invented to take
their place. Mr. Peterson's proposal to replace them by "noetical" and "fac-
tual"' would be acceptable only in a limited sphere of their application. The
term "noetical" can apply only to thinking beings endowed with mind. It
refers to thinking processes only, while "subjective" denotes the inner aspect
of anything in its contrast to the surrounding world. The amoeba does not
think; it would be a misapplication of the word to speak of noetic processes
taking place in its amoeboid soul, and yet there is a certain something going
on in the feeling of the amoeba which is analogous to the psychic processes of
man. It is not noetic but subjective. If a better term than subjective can be
invented, let us have it, but noetic is decidedly insufficient.

"Factual" means obviously anything that belongs to the domain of facts,
a thing or event that is real, or unquestionably existent. And what is more
factual than the existence of consciousness, the main phenomenon of subjec-
tivity? Moreover, noetic processes take place in all thinking beings and can
be observed and described as processes of the objective world like the pro-
cesses of physiological functions and the motions of material bodies. Thus
the terms noetical and factual would not cover the same ground, nor do they
form the same contrast as do subjective and objective.

The contrast to factual is "imaginary" or "illusive," while the contrast to
noetic should rather be "sensory," i. e., the raw sense-material which noetic
processes work out into knowledge.

The difficulties in regard to the term Anschauung have received especial
attention in the columns of The Monist, and we have proposed to translate it
by the neologism "atsight," coined after the analogy of foresight and insight,
and denoting, in opposition to insight, the act of beholding or sighting ex-
ternal objects, with which a thinking being is confronted. That the meaning
of atsight should not be limited to the sense of sight is a matter of course
which is equally true of the German Anschauung, and also of Mr. Peterson's
"aspection." Such widening of terms is quite in keeping with the philo-
logical spirit of all languages and need not be defended here. But we must
admit that Mr. Peterson's proposal to introduce the term "aspection" appeals
to us, although it would need as much explanation as the other translations
of Anschauung : intuition, atsight, perception, etc.

Mr. Peterson's statement that intuition is a wrong translation, is scarcely
tenable. He should have said that our present use of the term interferes with
its original and proper application which is the sense in which Kant uses the
term Anschauung. Far from being wrong, the word intuition is the original

636 THE MONIST.

term which German philosophers have translated by Anschauung. The Latin
intueor means "I behold," and intuitio is the act of beholding. This is the
sense in which the word is used by Kant and Kantians, and those readers
of Meiklejohn's translations who know Kant's usage of the Latin intuitio
will have no difficulty in understanding the term correctly.

Unfortunately, mystics misapplied the term intuition. They cherished the
fond hope of a visionary knowledge which should be as direct and immediate
as sense-perception, unincumbered with the complication of our noetic pro-
cesses. Prophetic minds should be able to behold the truth at a glance and
comprehend the most intricate problems of life by immediate perception, as
in the darkness a landscape with all its most intricate details may be suddenly
revealed to our eyes by a flash of lightning. This mystical beholding of
truth being called by the Latin name intuition, we have proposed, in analogy
with the Teutonic Anschauung, to introduce a Saxon term for the concrete
act of beholding real things.

One more point: It seems strange that so many philosophers neglect the
establishment of a philosophical terminology, and Mr. Peterson trusts that
he will be able to create one that would at .least do away with the technical
difficulties connected with the meaning of terms. But we fear that no attempt
at establishing a terminology acceptable to all schools would be successful,
for the sole reason that each terminology reflects a particular philosophy.
The introduction and acceptance of a certain terminology will necessarily,
we might almost say mechanically, influence thinking minds and force them
into a definite conception of the world. If this be the correct view, it will be
an advantage, but there are still differences of opinion on that subject. The
acceptability of certain contrasts implies an acquiescence in their legitimacy.
The contrast between objective and subjective, for instance, involves a great
many philosophical conclusions which many people of a dualistic bent are
not inclined to concede, and the acceptance of these two terms implies in
fact the acceptance of monism, for the very conception of the contrast rec-
ognizes the oneness of two opposites and conceives their duality as being due
to a difference of aspect.

Accordingly we believe that all attempts at establishing a commonly ac-
cepted terminology will fail, until we have realized the ideal of a philosophy
of science, — a philosophy which would be a science as much as mathematics,
chemistry, and physics. That this is possible we do not doubt. We have in-
sisted on its feasibility and offered our own solution for many years, ever
since the first appearance of The Monist.

EDITOR.

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS. 637

DEFINITION OF GOD.

It is always more easy to criticize the work of another than to improve
upon it Hence it is with some diffidence that I make these remarks upon
the definition of God contained in the article "Definition of Religion" in The
Monist for October, 1904. Nevertheless that definition that "God is the high-
est authority for moral conduct" appears to me so far from the truth that I
feel compelled to protest against it

The Christian idea of God is derived from the Bible. Here we first meet
it in the form of a powerful being represented as creating the heaven and the
earth, plants, animals, and men. This idea was never given up by Jews or
Christians. Jeremiah represents God as saying, "Before I formed thee in the
belly, I knew thee," and Jesus says, "If God so clothe the grass of the field
etc., shall he not much more clothe you?" It is evident, therefore, that the
idea of God as Creator is an essential part of the God-idea in Christianity.
It is also a part of the idea of God in Mohammedanism, vide Koran, chap, iv :
"O men, fear your Lord, who hath created you out of one man, and out of
him created his wife, and from them two hath multiplied men and women."
The same idea occurs in Hinduism, where God is called Brahma, the Creator,
and by other names as Jaganath, Visvesvara, etc. with a similar signification.

It appears to me on analyzing the popular conception of God that it may
be resolved into two distinct portions. The first is the idea of God as Creator
and sustainer of all things. This idea is prominent in Old Testament theol-
ogy, in Mahomedanism, in Brahman and Saivite Hinduism, in the Persian
religion, and in many others. But a second idea is also sometimes present.
This is the ethical ideal. In some religions these two ideas are combined;
in others they are kept separate. They are combined in Christianity, where
Jesus, the ethical ideal, is confused with Yahveh, the Creator. They are com-
bined in Vaishnava theology, where Vishnu, the ruler of the world, is con-
founded with his incarnations Krishna and Rama. But they are separate in
Buddhism, where Buddha is worshiped (if at all) as the ethical ideal, while
the first idea of God as Creator is omitted and denied. But it must be noted
that the idea of God as Creator is found in Thibetan Buddhism where Siva
takes the place occupied by Yahveh in the Christian Trinity.

Thus it is possible to divide religions into three classes, (a) where the
idea of God as Creator predominates, as in Judaism, Mahomedanism, Zoro-
astrianism, Brahmanism, Saivism, etc.; (6) where the idea of God as the
ideal man prevails, as in Buddhism; and (c) where these two ideas both
exist and coalesce, as in Christianity, Thibetan Buddhism, and Vaishnavism.
It should be observed that as a real man is preferable to an ideal one as a
model for imitation, so those religions which conceive God as an ideal man

638 THE MONIST.

always represent him in the form of a real one, as Christianity (Jesus) Bud-
dhism (Gautama), and Vaishnavism (Krishna and Rama).

It should also be remarked that the founder of each religion is always
considered the real highest authority for moral conduct. Thus Moses was
the highest ethical authority for the Jews, Jesus for the Christians, Mahomet
for the Mahomedans, and Gautama for the Buddhists. Nevertheless only
Jesus and Gautama Buddha have been worshiped as God, and primitive Chris-
tians and primitive Buddhists did not do this. The worship of the supreme
ethical authority, or moral ideal as God is a corruption therefore, and not
true religion. From all of which it is evident that the idea of God as Creator
is the essential one to religion, and the idea of God as perfect man and
supreme moral authority is a secondary one and not sanctioned by the highest
religious authorities.

It may be objected that the prophets Moses, Jesus, and Mohamet always
ascribed their moral doctrines to God, and that therefore we should do so
likewise. But this is not altogether true. Each prophet ascribed his call to
God, and claimed the sanction of God to his doctrines, but not much more.
Jesus used to say, "It was said of them of old time so and so, but / say unto
you so and so." Obviously therefore he was his own supreme ethical author-
ity. This is even more apparent in the case of Gautama Buddha. Mahomet
also altered his precepts from time to time according to circumstances, which
he would not have done had he believed them to be divine. Therefore we
must suppose that the supreme ethical authority of the prophets was not God,
but the opinion held by each as to what course of conduct was best for his fol-
lowers and the human race. Surely then it must be evident that the idea of
God as Creator is the most important one.

ROBERT C. COCKERILL.

MEADVILLE, PA.

BOOK REVIEWS.

MASS AND CLASS. A Survey of Social Divisions. By W. 7. Ghent. New
York: The Macmillan Company. London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
1904. Pp. ix, 260. Price, $1.25.

Some time ago Mr. W. H. Mallock published a book on Classes and
Masses, which, however, according to the opinion of Mr. W. J. Ghent, does
not do justice to the subject. Mr. Ghent says of Mr. Mallock: "His argument
and illustration are confined solely to an attempt to prove the interesting
assumption that out of the modern increase of wealth in Great Britain the
'working classes' have received an altogether disproportionate share."

In contrast to Mr. Mallock's book our author proposes the result of his
own investigations which he characterises as follows: "In my present work
I have sought to analyse the social mass into its component classes; to de-
scribe these classes, not as they may be imagined in some projected benevolent
feudalism, but as they are to be found here and now in the industrial life of
the nation; and to indicate the current of social progress which, in spite of
of the blindness of the workers, the rapacity of the masters, and the sub-
servience of the retainers, makes ever for an ultimate of social justice."

The author divides all classes of those directly concerned with production,
distribution, exchange, and service, into six groups to the exclusion of non-
wage-earning women and children. These six classes are (i) proletarians
or wage-earning producers, (2) self-employing producers, among whom the
land-holding farmers and handicraftsmen are the most important ones, (3)
social servants, (4) traders, (5) idle capitalists, and (6) retainers whose
occupations consist in contributing to the comforts and interests of capitalists,
traders, etc.

The most important parts of the book are chapters 7 and 8 on "The
Reign of Graft," which contain our author's accusations of the present state
of conditions, "an inescapable result of individualist competitive industry."
Many of the evils pointed out in these chapters are no doubt based on jus-
tice, but we cannot help thinking that the author is strongly biased by his
preconceived notions of a one-sided social ideal. He concludes his book with
these words:

640 THE MONIST.

"Slowly among the victims arises a sense of the injustice, the chaos, and
the waste of this practice ; and more slowly, but still surely, the determination
to be rid of it; to apportion, upon equitable terms, the common burdens,
and to distribute, in equitable shares, the common hoard. That determination
is the growing and expanding will of the producing classes, and its fulfilment
will be the co-operative commonwealth."

AN OUTLINE OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION, With a Description of some of
the Phenomena which it Explains. By Maynard M. Metcalf. New
York: The Macmillan Co. 1904. Pp. xvii, 204. Price, $2.50 net
The author, Maynard M. Metcalf, is professor of biology in the Woman's
College of Baltimore, and the present book incorporates a series of lecures
which he gave before a number of visitors who had expressed a desire to
attend, as well as the students in his classes. For this reason the lecturer
has especially endeavored to avoid technicalities as far as possible, treating
the subject in a popular way and supplying a great part of information by
means of illustrations. In fact we may say that the illustrations of the book
are its most important feature, and the author has purposely selected them
from the best scientific sources, in the hope that his students will thus be
encouraged to study up the subject more carefully in the expositions of
those prominent writers who have been the chief contributors to the develop-
ment of this most significant branch of science. The style of the lectures
is easy and fluent, and the illustrations (some of which are in colors, espe-
cially those referring to mimicry) are not only instructive but elegant as
well.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF HERBERT SPENCER. By William
Henry Hudson. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Ltd.
London: Watts & Co., 1904. Pp. 128.

This booklet contains 3j biography of Spencer. It contains a review of
Spencer's early work preparatory to his main theme, an exposition of the
Synthetic Philosophy, a condensed statement of the First Principles, the Prin-
ciples of Biology and Psychology, a sketch of Spencerian sociology, a sum-
mary of his ethics, and finally the religious aspect of his philosophy. The
appendix contains a list of Spencer's works. This book, which makes no
claim of offering anything new, may be useful to those who are not familiar
with Spencer's theories. It is adorned with a picture not of Mr. Spencer but
of his interpreter, Mr. Hudson.

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